Louisiana Educator: Getting the Truth Out About Ed Reform

Louisiana Educator: Getting the Truth Out About Ed Reform:

Getting the Truth Out About Ed Reform

The education reform we are going through in Louisiana and in many other states is not true reform because it is not improving education in any way whatsoever. That is the truth. VAM is a sham because it is inaccurate, damaging to good teachers' careers, and subject to manipulation by the LDOE. That is the truth. Grading of our schools using A-F is is doing more harm than good because all it does is tell us which schools have the most at risk students (which we knew already) and it stigmatizes all the dedicated professionals who work in our most needful schools driving good educators away. That is the truth. The whole system of constant standardized testing, test prep, and structuring the school year around testing, is destroying all the creativity and joy in teaching and learning and also driving good teachers out of the profession. That is the truth. 

And now we have Common Core. A new system of standards imposed by the Gates Foundation that drives curriculum in our schools and forces teaching shifts to gimmicky methods of teaching math and reading designed by people who have no classroom experience. It forces shifts to methods that are not productive and not as effective as methods most teachers have used for years. Common Core will not improve academic performance, it will certainly not close the achievement gap as claimed by the proponents, but it will drive more dollars to testing companies and to the growing Pearson monopoly of texts, ipads, and test rehearsal products. That is the truth.

Did you notice that most of the traditional (status quo) media reporting has not adequately explained the above truths about the so the called education reform movement which Diane Ravitch and Mercedes Schneider are now referring to as the corporate Louisiana Educator: Getting the Truth Out About Ed Reform: