“What was educationally significant and hard to measure has been replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure. So now we measure how well we taught what isn’t worth learning.” —Arthur L. Costa; Professor of Education, Emeritus; CA State Univ, Sacramento
Every once in a while I feel the need to do a kitchen sink edition. A palate cleanser of a sort. Things pile up and I never get time to really address them. Today I’m going to hit as many of those as possible. So warning, this one may be a little more disjointed than most.
In the wake of recently passed legislation concerning literacy. the Tennessee Department of Education and in particular Its Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn, have kicked up their PR efforts.
What this translates to is a social media feed chock full of pictures of the commissioner visiting schools and posing for pictures with students and staff. A sure-fire method of currying favor with the masses. Who doesn’t love a picture of kids in the classroom?
It also means a subtle rewriting of history and putting a positive spin on events that transpired over the last several months. To serve this end, a new Twitter account has sprung up #LiteracyMatters Tennessee. A nice innocuous name, right? After all, everybody loves literacy.
There is little additional information about the account, but based on early thread entries I would suspect it’s been created by one of the regular culprits – TNDOE, SCORE, TNTP. All three paired CONTINUE READING: IT IS NEVER AS INNOCUOUS AS IT APPEARS UPON FIRST BLUSH – Dad Gone Wild