Thursday, August 25, 2011

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Duncan on testing: twitterdum?

Parents United for Responsible Education » Blog Archive » Duncan on testing: twitterdum?:

Duncan on testing: twitterdum?

I had to leave in the middle of the Arne Duncan Twitter Town Hall to do an interview about Rahm’s Trojan Horse (watch it on CBS-2 this evening and read more here) but I did hear our Fed Ed Head talk out of both sides of his mouth (as usual) about testing.

Here’s a brief report from talkradionews.com about Fed Ed Head Duncan’s interchange with host John Merrow on the subject:

While Duncan was adamant that testing is critical to measure reading levels and annual improvements, he did admit that “the law is too punitive” and schools need to be granted “more


Rahm’s Trojan Horse

I’ll be talking tonight on CBS-2 news about the CPS proposal to lengthen the school day by 90 minutes. My quote in this morning’s Sun-Times was

“Any citizen of Chicago needs to ask how it’s going to be paid for. I don’t see how they can do it without raising class sizes to 45 kids. This is not a real plan. This is a politically motivated plan. It’s a plan to back the teachers union in a corner” and “make the teachers look like the bad guys for bursting the bubble.”

Let’s look at the numbers. According to Catalyst magazine, the CPS Office of Management and Budget