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Kindergarten show canceled so kids can keep working to become ‘college and career ready.’ Really.
An annual year-end kindergarten show has been canceled at a New York school because the kids have to keep working so they will be “college and career” ready. Really. That’s what it says in a letter (see below) sent to parents by Ellen Best-Laimit, the interim principal of Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, N.Y., […]
Oklahoma school district accepts Bible curriculum that says sinners must ‘suffer’ for disobeying God
A suburban Oklahoma City public school district has adopted a curriculum for high schools that its backers say uses Bible stories to teach subjects such as history and the arts and that says all sinners must “suffer the consequences” of disobeying God. It also says that some U2 songs are based in the Psalms. The […]
Does it pay to obsess on where your kid goes to school?
We all know people who seem to spend all of their time obsessing about where their children are going to go to school, as if there is a magical place that will ensure success. Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, looks at this phenomenon. He is the […]
Obama plans new regulation on colleges of education
The Obama administration’s obsession with standardized test scores knows no bounds. The newest example: a plan to spend millions of dollars to reward those colleges of education whose graduates, among other things, are successful in raising their students’ standardized test scores. Education Secretary Arne Duncan hopes to have a draft regulation ready by this summer […]
AFT asks Pearson to stop ‘gag order’ barring educators from talking about tests (update)
(Update: Pearson responds to Weingarten) American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is sending a letter (see below) to the executives of Pearson, the world’s largest education company, asking them to stop a ”gag order” that is part of their $32 million contract with New York state to design new standardized tests aligned to the […]
APR 24
Arne Duncan brings hammer down on Washington state, pulling its ‘No Child’ waiver
The Education Department is for the first time yanking one of the waivers it gave to states that exempts them the most onerous parts of the flawed No Child Left Behind law. As a result, Washington state will now have to comply with all parts of No Child Left Behind. Because of the peculiarities of […]
How, after 60 years, Brown v. Board of Education succeeded — and didn’t
The 60th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling is almost upon us and it’s a good time to take a look at whether it succeeded in its mission: to end segregation in public schools. Here is an important report about what has and has not been accomplished by the case. It […]
APR 23
How anxious are kids about taking standardized tests? This anxious.
If you have any doubt that kids feel pressure to do well on high-stakes standardized tests, consider this. A counselor at an El Paso elementary school, in an effort to allay student fears about having to take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests this week, held conversations with students in grades 3 […]
Parent to Obama: Let me tell you about the Common Core test Malia and Sasha don’t have to take but Eva does
I get a lot of e-mail from parents and teachers who wonder if President Obama, whose children go to the private Sidwell Friends School, knows what is actually going on with all of the standardized testing in public schools. Here’s an open letter to Obama explaining what he is missing, written by Rebecca Steinitz, a […]
Live online chat at 1 p.m. today
I’ll be doing a live chat on washingtonpost.com at 1 p.m. today, so if you have any questions or comments about anything in education (or even marginally related), send them in here: http://live.washingtonpost.com/the-answer-sheet-20230416.html Here are transcripts of my first chat, the second, and last week’s.
APR 22
Here’s the very first SAT, from 1926. Can you pass it?
Below is the original SAT, from 1926, which you can read about in the post below this. If you want to see it in a document form on which you can enlargen the test, click here. Alas, the College Board couldn’t find the answer code. If you want to see this as […]
What does the SAT measure? Aptitude? Achievement? Anything?
Back in the day, the day being June 23, 1926, the very first Scholastic Aptitude Test was given to some 8,000 young people, most of them male, who labored for three hours and 45 minutes on problems in nine areas: definitions, math problems, classification, artificial language, antonyms, number series, analogies, logical inference, and paragraph reading. […]
A new setback for racial justice in college admissions
By upholding Michigan’s ban on the use of racial preferences in college and university admissions, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday dealt a new blow to racial justice. Technically the court ruled that Michigan’s Proposal 2, a 2006 ballot initiative that led to a state constitutional ban on race-conscious college admissions, is constitutional (a decision that overruled […]
11 problems created by the standardized testing obsession
Ron Maggiano is a veteran teacher who won the Disney Teacher Award for innovation and creativity in 2005 and the American Historical Association’s Beveridge Family Teaching Prize for outstanding K-12 teaching in 2006. After a 33-year teaching career, he resigned last year from West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Va., where he taught social studies. […]
APR 21
$100 million Gates-funded student data project ends in failure
A controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit organization called inBloom is shutting down after failing to achieve its goals. After most of the original state partners with inBloom withdrew their support, the final straw was the recent decision by the New York […]
How Bill Gates and fellow billionaires can actually help public education
Here’s a novel idea for how Bill Gates and his fellow billionaires can use their mountains of money to actually help public education instead of continuing to waste the cash on ineffective and damaging school reforms. If there is one thing that we know for sure about student achievement in U.S. schools, it’s that […]
Actually, online skimming probably hasn’t affected serious reading after all
A popular Washington Post article by my colleague Michael S. Rosenwald said that researchers were finding that the habit of scanning and skinning material online was changing the human brain and hindering people’s” ability to read long, complex and dense material. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia, is highly skeptical. […]
What teachers really want
One of the striking things about modern school reform is that the people who you would think would be a big part of the discussion — teachers — have largely been ignored. So what do teachers want? Francie Alexander, chief academic officer for Scholastic Inc., writes about a nationally representative poll of teachers that answers […]
APR 20
Who is mucking up science education?
Who is mucking up science education? Scientists or politicians? Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead’s education policy adviser, Mary Kay Hill, has sent a letter to John Friedrich, senior campaigner for Climate Parents, a group dedicated to preserving the Earth’s changing climate, saying that Mead has been concerned that scientists are mucking around with science education. The scientists, it seems […]
Blowing up Peeps: An experiment in thermodynamics
Here’s a video showing a lesson in thermodynamics with Peeps. Yes, Peeps. (If you don’t know what Peeps are, they are marshmallow candies in animal shapes. They used to appear in stores at Easter time but now are found year-round.) Carl Nelson, chief scientist and exhibits director at Imagination Station, a nonprofit science center in Toledo, does […]
A defense of public education against ‘the wolves of Wall Street’
Sara Stevenson is the librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas, who is sick and tired of assaults on the very notion of public education. Here are her reflections on the value of public education and what is being done to it in the name of ”‘reform.” By Sara Stevenson As a lifelong […]
APR 19
Clergy warn Christie: Your Newark school reform is a mess
Dozens of members of the clergy in Newark have warned Gov. Chris Christie (R) that school reform efforts by his appointed superintendent are causing so much controversy and “unnecessary instability” in the city that they are “concerned about the level of public anger we see growing in the community” over the issue. The state-operated Newark […]
Why community schools are part of the answer
Brock Cohen taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 12 years and is now pursuing a doctorate at the University of Southern California while working at the nonprofit Los Angeles Education Partnership as a schools transformation coach. He helps develop community schools, which build strategic partnerships with both public and private organizations to provide essential supports and reso