Saturday, March 7, 2015

UCLA's Troubling Question for Jewish Students Everywhere - The Atlantic

Accusations of Anti-Semitism at UCLA After Judicial Board Vote - The Atlantic:

UCLA's Troubling Question for Jewish Students Everywhere

The case of a woman whose impartiality was questioned by a judicial board illustrates how anti-Semitism works on campus today.

“Given that you are a woman and very active in the female community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

“Given that you are black and very active in the black community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

“Given that you are gay and very active in the gay community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

It seems obvious that any of these questions would be repudiated on almost any college campus, or in any polite company. Yet somehow, a few UCLA students thought the following was an appropriate question for a nominee for the student Judicial Board: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

Ultimately, Rachel Beyda, a sophomore, was confirmed to the role. But the line of questioning has sparked a conversation about anti-Semitism at UCLA and on college campuses more broadly. (The story's path—from the student-run Daily Bruin to Jewish outlets, then on to conservative blogs and finally, on Friday, The New York Times, is an interesting case study in how a story becomes a national headline.)

Members were apparently concerned that Beyda, who is also a member of campus Hillel and a Jewish sorority, would be able to rule impartially on issues before the board. Of course, there are many possible identities that could be involved in issues before the board, but Judaism was particularly close to members' minds because Beyda's nomination came not long after a bruising campus debate about "BDS," or Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a push to get universities to isolate Israel. UCLA's student government eventually approved a non-binding resolution calling on the university to divest from a list of companies it said was complicit in the occupation of the West Bank.

Students debated Beyda's nomination for some 40 minutes on February 10.Reading the minutes, one can track the students wrestling with the impropriety of the question, and at the end, Beyda was confirmed unanimously. She has declined to speak to media outlets, including The Atlantic, citing her role in student government. But following the meeting, a friend of Beyda's wrote to theBruin, calling on members of the Judicial Board to apologize. Two days later, their apology appeared in the paper. UCLA's chancellor also condemned the tenor of the discussion, and the Times quoted campus Jewish leaders rattled by the conversation and worried about anti-Semitism on campus.

Others, while appalled by the line of questioning, were more sanguine, saying UCLA doesn't feel like an anti-Semitic environment. (UCLA was not among the top 30 public universities in Jewish population in 2014, according to Hillel International, but it was in 2013.)

"I looked at what the students actually discussed, and my opinion of this is that Accusations of Anti-Semitism at UCLA After Judicial Board Vote - The Atlantic:

The Increasing Harassment of Jews Around the World

A 16-year-old takes the new PARCC exam. Here’s her disturbing report. - The Washington Post

A 16-year-old takes the new PARCC exam. Here’s her disturbing report. - The Washington Post:

A 16-year-old takes the new PARCC exam. Here’s her disturbing report.

Marina Ford is a high-achieving sophomore attending Pinelands Regional High School in Tuckerton, New Jersey. All of her classes are either honors or Advanced Placement. Her favorite subject is English, and she loves to read and write. She ordinarily scores above average on standardized tests — and always does especially well on the English section. The 16-year-old says that she loves English because it “gives me the freedom to explain myself and my point of view on a subject.” Her dream: “becoming a lawyer and going to a college I am proud of.” Marina recently took the PARCC — the new Common Core test being given in a number of states this spring — and she was so upset with the experience that she decided to write about it in a comment on the website of Save Our Schools New Jersey. I am republishing this with permission.

[Principal to parents: ‘We don’t need to get used to this. We need to stop it.’]

PARCC is a reference to the Common Core test created by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of two multi-state consortia given $360 million in federal funds to design new standardized tests that align with the Common Core State Standards and are supposed to be used to hold students, schools and teachers “accountable.” PARCC testing is under way in New Jersey and several other states. Controversy over the new Common Core exams has sparked a growing opt-out movement among parents, thousands of whom are refusing to allow their children to take the tests in states across the country. The PARCC consortium once had 26 member states, but after numerous defections there are now fewer than a dozen states committed to using the PARCC exam this year. The Arkansas House on Friday approved a measure to drop the PARCC.

Here is Marina Ford’s report on taking the PARCC:

I am in 10th grade and in all AP and honors classes. I’ve been taking the PARCC because I was informed that it will help me on future tests such as the SATS and there was a rumor going around that you needed to pass the PARCC in order to graduate. I was completely and utterly misinformed.

First of all, I am missing valuable weeks of preparing for my AP tests for a test that does not even remotely have purpose. I’ve been taking this exam on a Chrome book, which might I add are severely small and very difficult to type on. For the essays at the end of each test, I can not even use tab to indent my paragraphs yet an administrator in my school said that five-paragraph essays were expected.

There were some major difficulties logging in and when it came to the actual test. I discovered that the questions were very vague and unclear. For example, it wanted me to click a
A 16-year-old takes the new PARCC exam. Here’s her disturbing report. - The Washington Post:

Task force unveils plan to overhaul special education | EdSource

Task force unveils plan to overhaul special education | EdSource:

Task force unveils plan to overhaul special education

A statewide task force unveiled Friday a 222-page plan to dramatically improve education for students with disabilities, described as the crucial next step in education reform in California.

With schools in the state in the throes of adjusting to three new education reforms – the switch to local school district control over spending, the introduction of Common Core State Standards, and the roll-out of new student assessments – the Statewide Task Force on Special Education is calling for a greater integration of much of special education into the education system, including teacher training, early interventions, the use of evidence-based practices and data tracking.

“Instead of opening the door to a brighter future, special education for many students is a dead end,” states the report, “One System: Reforming Education to Serve All Students.”

Among the recommendations are a “common trunk” of preparation curricula for teachers and special education teachers, the equalization of funding for special education students across the state and state payment of costs now borne by districts for preschool for young children with significant disabilities.

Left unclear is where the funding will come from for interventions for infants to 3-year-olds, preschool for more students, and additional professional development for teachers, as well as recommendations that new facilities be designed to place special education classrooms in close proximity to other classrooms to allow peers to mingle. The report stated the early interventions would “save billions of dollars.”

While the report, titled “One System: Reforming Education to Serve All Students,” calls for the “seamless integration” of special education services into schools, Vicki Barber, co-executive director of the task force, made it clear in a February presentation that special education services and protections would not be diminished and that separate schools for students with relatively rare disabilities, such as blindness, would continue.

“This is not a restatement of the law, and not restatement of regulations,” Barber said. “This doesn’t take away any rights or any options for students.”

But the changes in how, when and by whom special education services are provided requires a shift in thinking about nearly every aspect of special education, from teacher training to funding, according to the report from the task force, a group formed in 2013 to study special education services and recommend changes in policy and practice. The genesis of the task force came from two longtime leaders in education, Michael Kirst, president of the State Board of Education, and Linda Darling-Hammond, chairwoman of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Teacher training will include more preparation in reading and language arts interventions and special education teachers will earn Task force unveils plan to overhaul special education | EdSource:

Birth of a charter school and Jeb Bush's vision for education | Tampa Bay Times

Birth of a charter school and Jeb Bush's vision for education | Tampa Bay Times:

Birth of a charter school and Jeb Bush's vision for education

TALLAHASSEE —After a bruising defeat in the 1994 gubernatorial race, Jeb Bush approached a well-known civil rights leader in Miami with an ambitious plan.

He wanted to open an experimental "charter" school in Liberty City, one of the nation's poorest communities. And he wanted T. Willard Fair to help.

Fair, the president of the Miami Urban League, was skeptical. Some members of his inner circle suggested Bush was using him for political gain.

The two men met in Miami. Fair assumed it would be nothing more than a photo-op. But it ended up being a 90-minute discussion on the state of Florida's schools.

"Jeb was genuine," Fair recalled. "You can't fool me. I'm going to test you too many times."

Two years later, in the summer of 1996, a group of 60 students, donning crisp red uniforms, entered the new Liberty City Charter School. It was the state's first charter school and it paved the way for hundreds of others.

There's no doubt that the experience in building the charter school helped Bush politically, softening his image in advance of his successful 1998 gubernatorial race. But it also sparked a deep interest in education policy that would define his legacy, both as Florida's governor and later as a leader in the national education reform movement.

"It opened his eyes to aspects of urban issues that he hadn't thought about before," said Matthew Corrigan, a University of North Florida political science professor and author of Conservative Hurricane: How Jeb Bush Remade Florida.

As Bush defines himself as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, the story of the Liberty City Charter School is certain to draw attention. It's a double-edge sword for Bush. Supporters can point to the school's academic success in boasting Bush's leadership in education. At the same time, opponents can point to the financial troubles that led to its closing in 2008 as evidence of Bush's failed education agenda.

Learning laboratory

Bush, who declined to be interviewed for this story, wasn't focused on education when he first ran for governor in 1994.

His crime-and-punishment platform had resonated with voters — so much so he led in the polls for much of the campaign. But the Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles had surged in the end, securing the seat for a second four-year term.

Only 64,000 votes separated the winner from the loser. It was Florida's closest gubernatorial race to date.

As the year came to a close, he and his former campaign manager Sally Bradshaw — then Sally Harrell — began drafting plans for a privately funded conservative research institute in Coral Gables. They called it the Foundation for Florida's Future.

Early on, the foundation devoted much of its resources to a new concept in education: charter schools. The privately managed, publicly funded schools had been sprouting up in other states, but were not allowed under Florida law. Supporters said the schools would promote innovative teaching and learning practices, and empower parents to play a larger role in their child's education.

"Nobody really knew about them," recalled Jon Hage, then a policy analyst for the Foundation for Florida's Future. "[Bush] said 'Jon, I want to know everything there is to know about charter schools.'"

Bush later took the idea to Fair.

He already had some details in mind. The curriculum would focus on reading and mathematics, but Birth of a charter school and Jeb Bush's vision for education | Tampa Bay Times:

Toward a holistic education in a post-API California

Toward a holistic education in a post-API California:

Toward a holistic education in a post-API California

Tueni Melalipi and Ethan Silva, third graders at Webster Elementary school in Long Beach. File photo by Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer

By The Los Angeles News Group Editorial Board, LA Daily News

POSTED: 03/06/15, 3:31 PM PST |

0 COMMENTS

Q: To which California demographic group has the Academic Performance Index score, known as the API, ranking all of the state’s schools, been of the most benefit since its introduction in 1999?

A: Realtors.

You know the pitch: “Folks, are you kidding me, a house on this block, we’re talking Stanford early admission virtually guaranteed! Richard Henry Dana Middle School? Check it out: a 956 on the API, it’s like you’re getting little Einsteins just for walking in the door!”

More than 15 years after its implementation, it can be a little hard to remember that one of the promises of the California API, which came along around the same time as the similar promises of the national No Child Left Behind program, was that socioeconomic factors would be taken into consideration, weighted through a complex algorithm that would make sure parental income and education levels were not the primary indicators of their children’s scores on yet another series of standardized tests, this time scored on a 200-1,000 scale.

Rather, the high teaching skills or lack of them at your children’s schools would be allowed to shine through on the API, so that parents could truly make their choices about where to live based on the quality of the schools themselves, as opposed to living around a bunch of rich and multiple-degreed neighbors, or of simply being, of course, rich and multiply degreed themselves.

But guess what? A quick look at the highest API scores in the state shows that — a few urban charters and magnet schools for highly gifted students aside — the best way of predicting high test scores is still parental education and income, up to a point. (Because of what experts call the ski-vacation factor, the numbers on average tend to drop off a bit for the children of the very wealthiest Americans, because too much striving can be unseemly.)

Now, the API era has come to an end, and educators are in the midst of what they say will be a lengthy process of figuring out how to replace it. John Fensterwald of the key California educational analysis website EdSource says the State Board of Education “is seizing the chance to redefine student achievement and reframe how schools are held accountable for performance.”

No one knows exactly what that will be. But there is fairly universal acknowledgement that the famous three-digit figure, if easy for Realtors to toss around, was what Fensterwald calls “a narrow gauge” for evaluating our schools. Too narrow a gauge, so that state education board chair Michael Kirst looks Toward a holistic education in a post-API California:

Friday, March 6, 2015

House Representative Santos and “Personal Finance” | Seattle Education

House Representative Santos and “Personal Finance” | Seattle Education:

House Representative Santos and “Personal Finance”

Washington State Representative Santos was a primary sponsor for yet another nonsensical bill, House Bill 1121.

From the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) Watch List, is the following description of the bill:

Directs the partnership to work with OSPI to integrate financial ed into common core and career and college standards.

Directs districts to offer a course students can take at school or home (meaning online).

Districts are encouraged to grant credit. Allows the partnership to seek federal andprivate funds (guess who from).

Do any of the legislators who put their name to the bill know:

1. …that the Common Core Standards are just for math and English? Therefore, adding Personal Finance to math and English makes those the three most important subjects that will be the focus in all schools in our state. What about science, civics, history and geography? Am I missing something here?

We’ve lost nurses, counselors, librarians, field trips, art, band, music and other enrichment classes but they want to legislate “Personal Finance” into the Common Core Standards?

2. …that the Common Core Standards are copyrighted along with the SBAC test and therefore cannot be altered?

Probably not. I doubt any of them knew anything about the Common Core Standards before voting to approve their implementation in our state. In fact, the Common Core Standards had not been completed when the fine politicians in the great state of Washington approved their use.

When a bill doesn’t make sense, what do I do? You know the answer. I follow the money.

Going through the list of Santos’ contributors, as well as Representative Magendanz‘House Representative Santos and “Personal Finance” | Seattle Education:

Answering a Challenge for “Full Disclosure” of My Secret Funding | deutsch29

Answering a Challenge for “Full Disclosure” of My *Secret Funding* | deutsch29:

Answering a Challenge for “Full Disclosure” of My *Secret Funding*

On March 4, 2015, I wrote a post about a Louisiana teacher promoting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the op/eds and who happens to be under contract with the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) as a paid “common core expert.”

The teacher did not disclose that she is being financially compensated specifically for promoting CCSS.

I took issue with both the compensation and the failure to disclose.

On March 6, 2015, I had a comment connected to the above post awaiting approval. It was written under the name, SickOfYourNonsense.

Here is what Sick had to say:

I think it’s time for full disclosure from you.
Who has been paying you under the table to keep our children tied to low standards and the worst curriculum in the nation,
Who has been paying you at all?

Setting aside the spitting-lizard tone of the above comment, allow me to offer “full disclosure” of my finances related to my advocacy for public education.

Let me begin with this: I am under contract with no entity, neither public nor private, nor with any individual for financial compensation for this blog, which is my primary, sustained means of communicating my research on the systematic privatization of public education.

I charge no fees to any readers of this blog. Any and all can read it for free.

To date, I have not sold the rights to any of my blog posts to any third parties.

My primary income is my teaching salary. It was slightly less in 2014 than in 2013. Our district allows teachers three days per year for “personal” absences. These I have used toward events related to education reform for the past three years (2012-14). Once I exhaust the three days, I must record my absence as “unexcused,” which means my teaching pay is docked. From 2012 to 2014, I collected no speaking fees for speaking engagements; I only asked that organizations pay for my travel, and in cases in which I needed to take an “unexcused” day from school, that the Answering a Challenge for “Full Disclosure” of My *Secret Funding* | deutsch29:

Rahm Emanuel is an Organic Tomato – sort of… | Reclaim Reform ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Rahm Emanuel is an Organic Tomato – sort of… | Reclaim Reform:

Rahm Emanuel is an Organic Tomato – sort of…

Posted on March 6, 2015by Ken Previti

As Rahm Emanuel spends millions of dollars on TV ads and other media, he labels himself certain things. In propaganda terms, this is a simple plan. If something is repeated often enough, people will believe it as truth.

One favorite term that Rahm and his PR people use is “Progressive Democrat.”
Just because he labels himself a “Progressive Democrat” doesn’t make him a Progressive Democrat any more than if he labeled himself… well, an “Organic Tomato.”

There are other corporate media connections that the rich and powerful use for their propaganda.

The Washington Post endorsed Rahm. Why?

Diane Ravich questions and answers what is behind the endorsement.

You may wonder how the term ‘progressive Democrat’ became a definition for someone who attacks teachers, unions, and public education, and exactly how they differ from conservative Republican governors like Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Mike Pence.

Rahm closed more public schools than any person in America’s history. That is un-Rahm Emanuel is an Organic Tomato – sort of… | Reclaim Reform:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

California’s school funding guarantee, Prop 98 - One More John Mockler Lesson for the Road :: Fox&Hounds

One More John Mockler Lesson for the Road :: Fox&Hounds:

One More John Mockler Lesson for the Road

By Joe Mathews

Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010)

Friday, March 6th, 2015

The obituaries for John Mockler are focusing on his role in crafting California’s school funding guarantee, Prop 98, and the funding regime around it. That made sense—Prop 98 had a huge impact, and his command of the complicated measure was so great that I once suggested in print that California needed a constitutional amendment requiring Mockler to live forever. If only such a thing could be legislated.

But the focus on Mockler’s finance work, and on his public service and political work, shouldn’t distract us from recognizing the breadth of his commitment to California kids and schools. He thought about far more than funding. He was deeply grounded in the realities of kids – how they learn and how schools affect their educations and their lives.

He also had a great devotion to facts, and to trying to correct misimpressions. And one point he made often and very well deserves to be remembered by all Californians. That point? California’s schools are NOT failing.

Yes, the schools have challenges, they need more funding, and they need to do better, he’d say. But the repetitive slur that “our schools are failing” is wrong, a product of misuse and misunderstanding of statistics, he argued convincingly. The statistics showed that California schools have made huge gains – even in the face of underinvestment. A better question might be whether those gains are enough – and how we could accelerate them.

When I talked to him in recent years, our conversation was often about this subject. Mockler believed we needed a more accurate, clearer understanding of what schools were doing right – if we were going to do better by California children.

Mockler gave talks about the non-failure of California schools – and their progress. As someone who stole many of Mockler’s statistics and arguments from these talks for journalistic purposes, I highly recommend reading this interview of Mockler, laying out his case. I’d also suggest an excellent slide show with more figures.

To honor his memory, I’d suggest we all resolve to stop referring to California schools as “failing.” Yes, the schools need to do better. But so do we all.One More John Mockler Lesson for the Road :: Fox&Hounds:

Showdown in Chicago: Harold Washington Loyalist vs. "Mayor 1%" ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Showdown in Chicago: Harold Washington Loyalist vs. "Mayor 1%":

Showdown in Chicago: Harold Washington Loyalist vs. "Mayor 1%"

Thursday, 05 March 2015 11:52By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed

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Chicago mayoral candidate Jesus "Chuy" Garcia speaks with Chicago Southside residents. (Photo: Eric Allix Rogers)On April 7, there's going to be a world-historical electoral showdown in Chicago between incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the insurgent challenger, former Harold Washington lieutenant Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. The official deadline for voter registration is in less than a week, on March 10. A recent Chicago Sun-Times poll said the race was a "dead heat."

National media are alreadyportraying this as a national showdown between the Hillary Clinton/Wall Street/corporate wing of the Democratic Party and the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders/Harold Washington populist wing. MoveOn, Democracy for America and other national progressive Democratic groups are already on the ground in Chicago, pulling out the stops for Chuy. Veterans of the Harold Washington campaigns are "getting the band back together."

We all believe in voting and participation, right? So, if this is really going to be a referendum on where the Democratic Party is headed, with national implications, then we all should all easily agree that every available Chicagoan over the age of 18 should participate, right?

Members of the Chicago diaspora spread across the United States - especially, spread across Illinois - have a special responsibility to help Rock the Vote.

With this responsibility in mind, I have prepared the following planning calendar from public sources, focused on the task of making sure that college students from Chicago who may temporarily be residing in other places in Illinois avail themselves of the opportunity to participate.

All of us have Chicagoans in our midst. Make sure that the Chicagoans in your life engage on this. Friends don't let friends miss a world-historical election.

Chicago Mayoral Election: Student Participation Planning Calendar

March 10: Official deadline for registering to vote in the election. Chicagoans can register to vote here.

March 7 - March 15: Spring break at Northern Illinois University, Illinois State University (ISU) and Southern Illinois University (SIU). Thus, Northern, ISU and SIU students who are home in Chicago for spring break can register to vote before the official deadline during the first few days of their break.

March 16 - 20: Spring break at Eastern Illinois University.

March 23 - April 4: Early vote at any of 51 locations citywide.

March 21 - March 29: Spring break at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(UIUC). Thus, UIUC students who are home in Chicago for spring break can early vote between March 23 and March 29.

April 2: Official deadline for requesting a mail ballot (absentee ballot.) Any registered voter may cast an absentee ballot by mail. Voters do not need a reason or excuse to vote by mail. Absentee ballots need to be postmarked by April 6. The Showdown in Chicago: Harold Washington Loyalist vs. "Mayor 1%":

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Bunkum Awards 2014 | National Education Policy Center

Bunkum Awards 2014 | National Education Policy Center:

Bunkum Awards 2014

The National Education Policy Center is pleased to announce the deserving winners of the 2014 BUNKUM AWARDS, recognizing the lowlights in education research over the past year. This marks our ninth year of handing out the Bunkums, and—judging by the bunk we’ve been reviewing—we’ll admit to feeling a little uneasy about the possibility that we may actually be enticing think tanks to produce awful reports. So, just to be clear to any think tank folks who may be reading this: receipt of these awards isn’t something to be proud of. Please stop competing to out-bunk one another.

Watch the 2014 Bunkum Awards Ceremony:

2014 Bunkum Honorees:

The ‘Class Size Reductio ad Absurdum' Award

To GEMS Education Solutions for The Efficiency Index

Read Review →

Comparing international test scores and drawing ominous conclusions is quite the rage. Also, as GEMS Educational Solutions found, it is a great way to garner credulous coverage from The Economist and the BBC. All that’s needed is a pile of data and a mathematical model, and one can do creative things like rank countries’ educational systems based on their “efficiency.” It apparently matters not how much sense it all makes, as long as it can be puffed up with something that sounds sufficiently intimidating, such as a stochastic frontier analysis, to lend an air of gravitas to an inherently silly idea. So armed, GEMS set out in The Efficiency Index to rank 30 countries. When the data emerged from the GEMS statistical grinder, researchers concluded from the resulting mince meat that to get a 5% increase in PISA scores, teacher wages would (on average) have to go up by 14% or class sizes would (on average) have to go down by 13 students per class.

The most entertaining part of this report is the efficiency index itself, which purports to list optimal wage levels and class sizes for each country. For four countries, the optimal class size is estimated at fewer than two students per teacher. The teacher salary part of the report is almost as risible. The Swiss, we discover, should cut teachers’ wages nearly in half to achieve that nation’s “optimal” teacher salary. Indonesian teachers meanwhile would see their wages triple. As explained by our reviewer, City University of New York economist Clive Belfield, such anomalies expose the weaknesses in each of the study’s three key elements: “the output measure is questionable, the input measures are unclear, and the econometric method by which they are correlated does not have a straightforward economic interpretation.”

Meanwhile, even those of us in the research community who have long pointed to the benefits of (smart) class-size reduction can savor the irony of an “efficiency” report suggesting that two students is an optimal class size.

The ‘What the World Needs Now is Choice Sweet Choice' Awards

To Fordham Institute for Expanding the Education Universe

Read Review →

To Reason Foundation for Federal School Finance Reform

Read Review →

The past decades have seen school choice expand through charter schools, vouchers, tax credits (neo-vouchers), and various other mechanisms dreamed up after feverish evenings of reading Milton Friedman. While it’s true that all this choice has increased systemic inequities even as it has failed to improve educational outcomes, that’s no reason to stop or slow down—at least not according to two Bunkum-winning reports: Expanding the Education Universe: A Fifty-State Strategy for Course Choice from the Fordham Institute, and Federal School Finance Reform: Moving Toward Title I Funding Following the Child from the Reason Foundation.

The Fordham report urges policymakers to bring the blessings of market competition to the selection of classes, envisioning a future when students design their own selection of online and off-line classes, offered by a variety of public and private providers. Unfortunately, the report makes no effort to actually evaluate the merits of the idea. It “assumes, without solid evidence, that course choice, electronic educational provisions, and the like are viable, Bunkum Awards 2014 | National Education Policy Center:

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Saturday, March 7, 2015