Strauss: A bone-headed tweet from Education Department
Put this in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: Someone at the U.S. Education Department tweeted out what was considered a funny reminder for students to fill out their federal financial aid forms, known as FAFSA. The tweet had a picture from the movie “Bridesmaids” depicting the drunken character played by Kristen Wiig’s character on a plane with the words, “Help me. I’m poor.” After the
The Great Teachers and Principals Act: not so great after all
Last year I published a piece by Kenneth Zeichner, a professor who has done extensive research on teaching and teacher education, which discussed legislation in Congress about teacher and principal preparation programs. The legislation is officially called the “Growing Excellent Achievement Training Academies (GREAT) Teachers and Principals Act” and referred to as the GREAT Act. […]
Reformers lose one to a veteran teacher
There’s a new piece on The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog with this headline: “Vergara vs. California: Are the top 0.1% buying their version of education reform?” Anybody paying attention to school “reform” knows that the answer to that question is that some folks in that group are trying their best. But they don’t always win. […]
Is this really how we should test reading development in kids?
DIBELS, or Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, is a set of procedures and measures developed at the University of Oregon for assessing literacy development in students from kindergarten through sixth grade. The DIBELS website says that the measures — one-minute fluency exercises – were “specifically designed to assess the five early literacy components: Phonological Awareness, […]
6-24-14 Answer Sheet
Answer Sheet: Better ways to use millions of dollars now spent on testingHundreds of millions of dollars are spent by states and school districts on standardized tests every year, money that could be used for purposes far more helpful in improving student achievement. What are those purposes? Here are some suggestions, from Jim Arnold and Peter Smagorinsky. Jim Arnold recently retired from the sup