“There is no evidence that standards and tests improve school achievement. The money budgeted for standards and tests to enforce the standards should be used to protect children from the effects of poverty.” — Professor Stephen Krashen The following is my edited commentary in response to comments by a CCSS supporter on the Professor Ravitch […]
Debunking Common Core Curriculum’s so-called Four C’s
December 25, 2012 By 3 Comments
“When you go to doctors, they don’t take all your blood, they only take a sample.” — Professor Stephen Krashen Professor Diane Ravitch had a brief comment entitled The True Goals of Education? this morning where a reader suggested a sort of whole child approach based on virtues as opposed to tedious test preparation. That […]
Obscuring history and human agency through NCLB, RTTT and CCSS
July 25, 2012 By 2 Comments
“Prior research, then, strongly suggests that charter programs have not lived up to their initial promise of transcending the segregating effects of traditional district boundary lines. In fact, these studies indicate charters exacerbate already rampant school segregation, particularly for Black students.” — Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Jia Wang The Smith and Carlos Statueat San José […]
This is how the #ccss is going to work
July 22, 2012 By 1 Comment
I created a simple diagram of how the Common Core standards are going to work. There’s really nothing scientific about it, yet I feel like supports of the CCSS aren’t really aware of the implications. Because we have a state by state system at this time, there’s a good amount of variation in teaching and […]
@skrashen lays out the #commoncore train with a lot of quirky visuals
July 14, 2012 By 1 Comment
Via Living Behind the Gates. Get it? Stephen doesn’t think it’s too late in terms of tempering loyalty to the Core. He’s a harsh critic and doesn’t believe it will change anything. Well, it will certainly lead to more testing, and that point is clear. I don’t quite understand the amnesia. So, let’s see, NCLB […]
Guest Post: The Education Sector Attempts to Head Off a Common Core Trainwreck
July 3, 2012 By 1 Comment
By John Thompson The Education Sector’s new report, Getting to 2014 (and Beyond): The Choices and the Challenges Ahead, could have been entitled “Whistling Past the Graveyard.” The report starts with the standard proclamation that “new accountability systems will reflect the expectation that tremendous progress in students outcomes across the country could occur through the […]
Very evocative conversation on #SOSchat last evening with the prez of #AFT
May 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Episode 56 of @thechalkface available, we discuss the failures of #NCLB, the #romney education plan, and #NCTQ
May 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
#HuffPo reports on the renewal of #NCLB
March 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Via Huffington Post. Here’s the thing, I actually agree with the Republicans on this one. We probably do so from different ideologies, but I think more control should be placed in the hands of states and local districts in terms of accountability and testing. The measures would have states develop their own systems to identify low-performing […]
On #NCLB as a #zombie, as transcribed for me by a friend
January 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Past and Present: Eugenics, Standardized Tests, and the Politics of School Reform–Hoosier connections and challenges
[Editor's note: An early draft version was posted in error. This has been corrected.]*Guest Post by John Loflin, Education-Community Action Team. johnharrisloflin@yahoo.com Past and present: Eugenics, standardized tests, and politics of school reform: Hoosier connections and challenges “If such a thing as a psycho-analysis of today’s prototypical culture were possible such an investigation would […]