Two more states pull out of Common Core
Two Republican governors, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, have just signed laws pulling their states out of the Common Core State Standards initiative amid growing anti-Core sentiment around the country. Fallin signed the law on Thursday, while Haley did it last week, joining Indiana in officially rejecting the Core. A few […]
U-Va. law school mistakenly sends out e-mail with private student data
Someone at the University of Virginia law school mistakenly sent an e-mail to lots of people containing private information about all of its clerkship applicants, with very detailed data about each one, including grade-point average and where their contacts live. The Above The Law Web site reported it this way: …Ruth Payne, UVA’s Director of […]
Judge puts hold on Common Core contract to Pearson
Last month I wrote about how the huge education company Pearson won a huge contract with one of the two multi-state consortia designing new Common Core-aligned tests. Pearson was the only bidder for the contract — to develop test items and forms, deliver paper and online versions, etc. — but as it turns out, an education corporation […]
The education question we should be asking
One area of education that doesn’t get enough attention in the loud education reform debate is exactly what is worth learning. In the following post Alfie Kohn explores this problem. Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org) is the author of 13 books about education, parenting, and human behavior, including “The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom […]
A clever way to get rid of teachers
When the North Carolina Senate late last month rolled out a new step salary schedule for teachers, it was reported in the state media as offering a big raise to educators while taking away job protections. But the new plan isn’t exactly what it seems. It ”incentivizes” teachers at specific experience levels to leave the […]
6-4-14 Answer Sheet
Answer Sheet: Parent: Why I can’t ‘in good conscience’ leave my kids in public schoolLynne Rigby and her husband Brad live outside of Orlando, Florida, with their five children who have attended a Seminole County public elementary school. Rigby, a former public school teacher and photographer, wrote a letter to state and local officials explaining why, with great sadness, she and her husband are p