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Former education secretary Bill Bennett paid to praise Common Core to conservatives
Bill Bennett, who was education secretary under President Ronald Reagan, just published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: “The Conservative Case for Common Core,” with the subhead: Federal intrusion and misleading rumors do a disservice to an effort that started in the states. The piece begins with Bennett saying he has been “following the […]
YESTERDAY
Proposed Texas textbooks are inaccurate, biased and politicized, new report finds
When it comes to controversies about curriculum, textbook content and academic standards, Texas is the state that keeps on giving. Back in 2010, we had an uproar over proposed changes to social studies standards by religious conservatives on the State Board of Education, which included a bid to calling the United States’ hideous slave trade […]
How a Koch foundation influenced a university economics department
Earlier this year, I published a piece about the role that the billionaire Koch brothers are playing not only in conservative politics but in pushing their own agenda in higher education. The piece was written by Dave Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity, one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations that […]
SEP 11
Common Core: What’s true, false and fuzzy
Thomas Scarice, the superintendent of Madison Public Schools in Connecticut, has been a vocal critic of high-stakes test-based school reform. This year he sent a letter to state legislators explaining why these “reforms will not result in improved conditions since they are not grounded in research” and he has spelled out what he sees as […]
Kindergarten teacher: ‘There is a good possibility I will be fired but…’ (update)
(Update: Statement from superintendent of district in which teacher works has been added) Teachers are increasingly speaking up about the onslaught of standardized tests that students in all grades — including kindergarten — are required to take in public schools today. Some are refusing to administer the tests, which can result in a teacher being […]
Education Dept. offers 9/11 teaching materials — but won’t guarantee their accuracy
Teachers looking for materials to help them devise lesson plans on the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks can find a lot of them on the Internet. There are lesson plans on the website of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, as well as materials on Scholastic. org and on the New York City schools […]
SEP 10
Do students learn more when their teachers work well together?
If you think that focusing on improving relationships among teachers is just a “warm and fuzzy” idea that doesn’t really matter to student achievement, read this post by Esther Quintero, senior fellow at the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute, where this first appeared. By Esther Quintero Debates about how to improve educational outcomes for students often […]
Long Island high school requires students to wear IDs, sign in and out of bathroom
A Long Island high school is now requiring students to wear identification cards at all times while in school and to sign in and out of the bathroom every time they use the facilities. Irene McLaughlin, principal of Northport High School, wrote in a back-to-school letter sent to parents (see below) that the moves are being […]
SEP 09
How U.S. News concocts its college rankings
U.S. News& World Report just released the 2015 version of its famous college rankings (which, frankly isn’t very different from the 2014 version). Princeton is No. 1. Harvard is No. 2. Yale is 3. And it turns out, there are three No. 4s — Columbia, Stanford and Chicago. Stanford and Chicago both shared No. 5 […]
Bill Gates wants your kids to learn history this way — and he’s paying to get it into schools
Bill Gates can’t seem to stop getting big ideas about public education — and then using part of his fortune to see them implemented. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars on various initiatives that Gates thought would help improve public education, including a small schools initiative that he abandoned when […]
Michelle Obama’s shout-out to Khan Academy
The Obama administration keeps expressing its admiration for Khan Academy and its founder, Salman Khan. Last year, Khan, who started the now-famous Web site that offers thousands of free videos for students in a range of subjects, interviewed Education Secretary Arne Duncan about the future of education. (You can watch the video here or below.) […]
SEP 08
Anti-testing movement growing, finding success around country
A new report on growing resistance to high-stakes standardized testing around the country finds that the movement is growing and meeting some success in numerous states where officials have decided to cut back on the numbers of tests students must take and/or the consequences for students and educators. The report, titled “Testing Reform Victories: The […]
Why kids should choose their own books to read in school
At one time many public schools gave students time to read books of their own choosing, an activity based on the common-sense theory that kids will read what interests them, and that kids who can choose what they read will learn to enjoying reading, and, hence, read more. Unfortunately, many schools no longer let […]
Interactive science classes benefit black, first-generation college students, study finds
A new study about college-level science shows that all students do much better when traditional lecture classes are made interactive — but those most helped are first-generation and black students. The study — titled “Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?” — looked at data from six semesters of large science lecture […]
‘We must push back against the misguided and dangerous belief that a new generation of teachers can emerge spontaneously’
The Urban Teacher Education Consortium is a national consortium of teacher educators who are dedicated to development strong preparation programs for cities across the country. Members of the consortium have just released a position paper on the training of teachers, releasing it at a time of “encroaching dehumanization and disempowerment of both teachers and their […]
SEP 07
Common Core math homework ‘help’
WGRZ-TV, an NBC affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y., does a useful continuing series called Homework Helper that is designed to assist students and their parents to better understand schoolwork. The series includes a set of 10 videos aimed at helping decipher Common Core math, with this explanation: The Common Core aims to teach strategies beyond memorization, […]
Does holding kids back a year help them academically? No. But schools still do it.
It may seem to make sense to hold back for a year a student who can’t read well but a mountain of research shows that it doesn’t actually help. Unfortunately, school reformers don’t seem to care what the research says. Here to discuss this is Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University […]
SEP 06
Testing revolt brews in Florida as Miami schools chief urges delay in new exams
In Florida, the state where former governor Jeb Bush (R) pioneered the use of high-stakes standardized tests for school “accountability” purposes, a testing revolt is unfolding. Late last month, the Lee County school board voted to drop all state-mandated tests as an act of “civil disobedience,” though the vote was rescinded because of fear that […]
Texas school district arms teachers and posts warning signs
The Argyle Independent School District in north Texas has started the 2014-15 school year, as KDAF-TV noted, “with guns blazing” — or, rather, with newly armed teachers who have been given the right to use them “to protect our students.” KDAF reported that all teachers who are given a gun must obtain a license to […]
The huge problem with professional development for teachers
One of the things that teachers have long said they need is quality professional development but most of them don’t get it. In this post, Alvin Crawford, CEO of Knowledge Delivery Systems, the largest provider of online teacher professional development programs, writes about the problem and what to do about it. Crawford has been in the teacher […]