My most popular blog posts of 2016, along with highlights and lowlights of the year
Here are my most popular blog posts of 2016, along with some of the highlights and low-lights of
the year:
May 14, 2016, 73 comments; 114,827 page views
My most popular post ever was this critique of the PARCC exam, written by an anonymous 4th grade teacher. Originally posted on Celia Oyler's blog, Celia deleted all references to specific questions after Laura Slover, the PARCC CEO, sent her a threatening letter, claiming copyright infringements. Twitter also took down many tweets, including mine, that linked to the the post, after complaints from PARCC.
I reposted the entire critique as originally written, and encouraged others to do the same. Though the PARCC CEO convinced Google (owner of Blogger) and other online hosts to delete it from many many other blogs, including Diane Ravitch's, my copy has been strangely left untouched to this day.
You can still see many of the Twitter and Google takedown notices on the Lumen website, The ensuing controversy was reported in the NY Times, Slate, USA Today, the Progressive, and the Washington Post Answer Sheet.
Since last spring, PARCC has lost even more support, and according to Education Week, is trying to figure out how to "reorganize to survive the coming years."
April 6, 2016, 31,168 page views
Lots of problems reported with the NY State exams, including test booklets with pages missing or unlabeled. The testing companies, Questar and Pearson, traded accusations as to who was at fault; in most eyes, they both deserved a big "F". 51 angry teachers, parents and administrators added their comments to the blog.
 |
| Sheri Lederman and her attorney, Bruce Lederman |
May 10, 2016; 26,163 page views
Sheri Lederman, Great Neck teacher, challenged the test-based New York teacher evaluation system in court as arbitrary and capricious and won.
Meanwhile Gallup released a new national poll revealing that most parents, teachers, students and administrators believed the quality of their state exams was poor or only fair, and that these tests do not improve learning.
Meanwhile Gallup released a new national poll revealing that most parents, teachers, students and administrators believed the quality of their state exams was poor or only fair, and that these tests do not improve learning.
The NYS ELA exams included overly long, dense and grade-inappropriate reading passages with numerous typos, abstruse vocabulary and confusing questions. In many cases, NYC Public School Parents: My most popular blog posts of 2016, along with highlights and lowlights of the year: