CCSS & the Men Behind the Curtain
Starr Sackstein is over at Education Week trying to make a case for the Core once again. And I'm going to disagree with her, once again.Sackstein has apparently evolved. The last time I responded to her, she was espousing the old "teach to the standards and the tests will take care of themselves" line. She has now moved on to "Well, yes, the tests are not good, but the Core is still
Sanders's Charter School Not Ready for Prime Time
The problem of athletic academies that push sports and ignore academics is not a new one.One recent growth industry has been the post-grad prep school, schools set up so that athletes who failed to make the necessary scores to qualify for NCAA play can take another year to make their numbers while still maintaining their sports edge. That tightening in standards grows out of repeated "discove
Accountability in the Age of the High Stakes Test
We've marched steadily toward accountability for over a decade now. Teachers must be held accountable. Schools must be held accountable.And not just in some fuzzy, non-specific manner. This accountability must come with real, hard consequences, say reformsters. Accountability means real consequences, financial consequences. If teachers aren't doing a great job, they should not get paid more. If th
8-17-14 Curmudgucation
CURMUDGUCATION: The Non-fiction vs. Fiction IssueSince Common Core first shambled onto the education stage, teachers (particularly language teachers) have sounded the alarm about the infamous 70/30 split between fiction and non-fiction. "We'll have to drop studying Shakespeare to make room for reading instructions for IKEA shelving assembly," goes the complaint.As a high school English t