Letter To Georgia Board of Education in Support of Common Core Math
I received the following letter, addressed to the Georgia School Board. Dear Diane, I know that you do not support the Common Core State Standards, but I also know that you are willing to consider other points of view. Pasted down below is the text of a letter I have written to the Georgia School Board as they reconsider the CCSS at the request of the governor. The letter is also posted at the Mat
U.S. Department of Justice to Bobby Jindal: The Voucher Program is Illegal!
This post by one of Louisiana’s great bloggers reports that the state’s voucher program undermines federal desegregation orders. Pesky things, the Constitution, the law, and court orders. Cenlamar writes: Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice asked Judge Ivan Lemelle to issue an injunction preventing the State of Louisiana from providing taxpayer-subsidized school vouchers in 2014 to
Teachers Are Not Robots: Let Me Inspire Again
A teacher wrote this comment about school “reform”: One thing I loved about teaching when I first began, 24 years ago, was the degree of inspiration and creativity I could bring to my lesson plans. It made teaching and being a teacher exciting for me. My excitement was the motivation, it was infectious to the students and learning was the natural by-product. Now, everything is highly structured an
Reader: How to Make a Standard That Works
This arrived as a comment on a post about the Common Core: “Say I am designing a fastener for a product. I can VOLUNTARILY choose a standard fastener for less cost off the shelf. That will guarantee interchangability. I also have a certain degree of confidence as to the characteristics about the fastener in terms of strength and corrosion that the standards give me. But I also limit my design to
Florida BATS Launch Attack on Common Core
Investigative Kathleen McGrory reports in the Miami Herald that Common Core has critics on the left. This is noteworthy, because Secretary of Education Arne Duncan insists that the main criticism of Common Core comes from extremists and fringe groups like the Tea Party. He also insists that the federal Department of Education has had nothing whatever to do with the Common Core standards; after all
I Recommend This Book
This is a book written by John Owens, who left his own comfortable job in publishing to become a teacher in a high-poverty school in New York City. His eyes were opened by what he saw. This is his story of what he learned. “An explosive new look at the pressures on today’s teachers and the pitfalls of school reform, CONFESSIONS OF A BAD TEACHER presents a passionate appeal to save public school ed
Liz Hallmark for School Board in Rochester
Wouldn’t it be great if more teachers ran for school board and for the legislature? Then when policies are written and implemented, there would be an experienced voice at the table, explaining the consequences of decisions made far from the classroom. I don’t know Liz Hallmark, but I am very impressed that she knows teaching and learning, she cares passionately about the arts, and she would be a g
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 8-25-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Civil Rights Groups Call for Duncan’s OusterA large national alliance of civil rights organizations has joined under the umbrella heading of “Journey for Justice.” This coalition has called for the resignation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. To understand why, read the flyer it distributed. Anyone who thinks that closing pub
