The Answer Sheet:
All Week @ The Answer Sheet
Are the Success Academies really so successful?
There was a big to-do recently in New York when new standardized testing results were released and the controversial Success Academies charter chain received very high scores. What, exactly, do the scores really tell us about the schools? Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Washington D.C.-based Albert Shanker Institute, explains. This post appeared […]
Back-to-school stress: How to recognize it and help kids manage it
Yes, kids get super-stressed, too, but it isn’t always easy to tell what is bothering them because they hide symptoms or explain them in vague ways. As the 2014-15 school year gears up, it’s a good time to learn how to identify stress in children and teens and help them manage it. Here are […]
Every school should have this classroom door
29 awesome #classroom doors for #backtoschool http://t.co/9eWBsZ1w4Q #elemchat #edchat pic.twitter.com/IlnBcHO5zQ — WeAreTeachers (@WeAreTeachers) August 22, 2014
YESTERDAY
Why teachers can’t ignore Ferguson as school begins
As the 2014-15 school year gets underway, teachers around the country have an opportunity and a challenge to bring into the classroom for discussion — in developmentally appropriate ways — the events roiling Ferguson, Missouri, since a white police officer shot to death an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown on Aug. 9. In the […]
A shameless bid for Twitter followers?
Follow us if you believe that every child deserves an excellent education! — USCCF Ed & Workforce (@USCCFeducation) August 5, 2014 (Here’s how the USCCF Ed & Workforce describes itself on Twitter: “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Center for Education & Workforce promotes rigorous educational standards and effective job training systems.”)
Judge smacks N.C. lawmakers, rules school vouchers unconstitutional
Blasting state lawmakers for concocting a scheme that he said “fails” children, a North Carolina judge declared unconstitutional a state voucher program that uses public money for students from low-income families to pay private school tuition. Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood ruled Thursday that the state’s “Opportunity Scholarship Program” violated the state’s constitution, which
And now, final exams for kindergartners. Really.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse for kindergartners, they do. It used to be that kindergartners could play — which is how early childhood development experts say young children learn and are socialized best. Today 5- and 6-year-olds are forced to sit for hours at a time doing academics, often with little […]
AUG 21
Is doing less harm enough for Education Secretary Duncan?
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said today via a blog post that he has decided to allow most states to apply for permission from the Education Department to push back to 2015-16 a requirement that they use student standardized test scores in teacher’s evaluations. This marked a step beyond flexibility Duncan offered last year, when he […]
For first time, minority students expected to be majority in U.S. public schools this fall
For the first time in U.S. history, ethnic and racial minorities are projected to make up the majority of students attending American public schools this fall, ending the white-majority population that has existed from the beginnings of the public education system. The U.S. Education Department projected that this fall, the percentage of students who are white […]
Books that college freshmen should have read over the summer
It has become a common practice at many colleges and universities to assign to incoming freshmen a book or other reading selection over the summer —sometimes as a requirement, sometimes just as a suggestion — so they can all come together to participate in a discussion about a particular theme during the school year. In some […]
A shocking statistic about the quality of education research
In 1968, an article in Kappan magazine titled “The Need for Replication in Education Research” by education Professor Robert H. Bauernfeind said: The principle of replication is the cornerstone of scientific inquiry. This principle holds that under similar conditions, one should obtain similar results. Replication has long been an essential aspect of research in the […]
AUG 20
Beyond Ferguson: The troubled state of America’s children, by the numbers
The 2014-15 school year is beginning at a time when all eyes are on the troubling events in Ferguson, Mo., where unrest continues after the Aug. 9 shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer and charges of systemic racial injustice have been raised. As all this unfolds, here’s a look […]
The strategic campaign needed to save public education — in nine steps
Leaders of the school standardized test-based reform’ movement have been very smart about using public relations and intentional messaging to their benefit, something their critics have failed to do. Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., discusses where supporters of […]
AUG 19
Obama losing public support on education issues, new poll finds
Anybody paying attention to the roiling education reform debate won’t be especially surprised by the results of a well-regarded annual poll: Support for President Obama on education issues is waning — with only 27 percent giving him an A or B — and a majority of the public saying they oppose the Common Core […]
Teacher raises nearly $80,000 to feed Ferguson kids who can’t get meals at shuttered schools
A teacher in North Carolina has raised nearly $80,000 to feed students from low-income families in Ferguson, Mo., who would ordinarily be getting free lunches at public schools in the St. Louis suburb but can’t because the start of the 2014-15 school year has been delayed twice as a result of civil unrest. The 11,000-student […]
Ferguson public schools won’t open this week as planned
Public schools in the 11,000-student Ferguson-Florissant School District in Missouri were supposed to open on Aug. 14 but did not as a result of the civil unrest sparked after a policeman shot and killed teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9. The new date for the opening of the 2014-15 school year was supposed to be […]
AUG 18
Poll: Common Core support among teachers plummets, with fewer than half supporting it
Anybody watching the escalating battle across the country over the Common Core State Standards and aligned standardized testing will hardly be surprised by a new national poll which reveals a significant loss of support over the last year — especially among teachers, whose approval rating dropped from 76 percent in 2013 to only 46 percent […]
Teacher: ‘Don’t tell me that I don’t want accountability’
I published a post last week titled “Seven things teachers are sick of hearing from school reformers” that was very popular with readers. There has been a lively debate in the comments section of that post, with some people critical of the teacher who wrote the piece and others supportive. I am publishing a response […]
What’s the real purpose of educational benchmarking?
“Benchmarking” is a word that is now everywhere in the world of education. There’s even a Center on International Education Benchmarking, a program of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which over 20 years has benchmarked the education systems of more than 20 countries in what is said to be an effort to […]
AUG 17
Common Core tests fail kids in New York again. Here’s how.
Results of the 2014 New York State Common Core-aligned exams were recently released along with new information about the 2013 tests and the news was not good. Here’s an analysis, by educators Bianca Tanis and Carol Burris, explaining what the results actually mean to students and educators. Burris, of South Side High School, has been […]
‘Dear (white) teachers…’
Michael Doyle teaches biology at Bloomfield High School, an urban district in northern New Jersey, with the aim of turning young cynical hearts into skeptical ones. He worked previously as a longshoreman, a lab tech in an alcohol plant, and, more recently, a pediatrician in the projects who decided he would rather teach than practice […]
Overheard at the Lincoln Memorial on a Saturday night
Even if you aren’t trying to eavesdrop, it is impossible not to overhear other people talking at the Lincoln Memorial when it is late on a Saturday night and the site is packed with people — mostly tourists — who are visiting the magnificent marble monument for the first time and are visibly astounded by its […]
AUG 16
Exercise in math class? How one math teacher gets kids moving while studying
I recently published a post titled “Why so many students can’t sit still in school today” that was very popular with readers. The piece mentioned Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder but another factor, as well: the idea expressed by pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom that academic pressures in school have reduced or eliminated the time that […]
Superintendents forced to tell parents their schools are failing, even though they aren’t
Many parents in Washington state are being told that their public schools are being considered as failing — even though it isn’t true. They are learning this from the superintendents of their school districts, who don’t want to do it but are being forced to. What’s going on? Last April, the U.S. Education Department yanked […]
