The Helmsley Charitable Trust will provide $2.2 million to Khan Academy, known for providing online instructional videos, to develop content and tools to meet the common core math standards. Read Full Post >
We have endured the tests. Now we must plan for the reaction to the scores. Tisch and others should stand up with us and join us in navigating the turbulence caused by this change. Read Full Post >
Teachers - and union leaders -- may feel as if they should get on board, to try to steer this process. However, I think this is a ship of doom for our schools. I think its effect will be twofold. It will create a smoother, wider, more easily standardized market for curriculum and technology. This will, in turn, promote the standardization of curriculum and instruction, and further de-professionalize teaching. The assessments will reinforce this, by tying teachers closer to more frequent timelines and benchmark assessments, which will be, in many places, tied to teacher evaluations. And the widespread failures of public schools will be used to further "disrupt the public school monopoly," spurring further expansion of vouchers and charters and private schools. Read Full Post >
This is Teacher Appreciation Week and tomorrow is National Teacher Day. It is time to take action to restore respect, autonomy, and responsibility to teachers for their profession. Read Full Post >
In an encore to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's speech in New York City this week, which called for a moratorium on high stakes linked to common-core testing, the union released the results of a poll on how members perceive the new standards. Read Full Post >
This morning, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten gave a speech in New York City in which she called for a moratorium on high stakes associated with the impending common-core tests. Read Full Post >
When it comes to education, however, Obama asserts a policy that has nothing to do with progressive ideas about education. While progressive ideas of education emphasize children as individuals who must be given opportunities to stretch their innate capacities within an organic context for learning, the President and Mr. Duncan have embraced the data-driven high-stakes-testing-model retooled from President Bush's No Child left behind days. Read Full Post >
I am deeply troubled by the path our state is headed down in assessing our elementary school students, and I strongly urge you to re-think both the design of and the importance placed on state assessments. You are making it that much harder to recruit talented individuals to the teaching profession. The tests are also souring the educational experiences of our youngest citizens, the ones we are preparing so hard for college and career readiness. However, we must also invest more in breaking the insidious, concrete-walled cycle of poverty in our nation. A much greater importance must be placed on fixing the root causes of low academic performance and educational inequities. Read Full Post >
The problem is many of us AGREE WITH conservatives on much of their critique. Or we ought to. We are not opposed to loose curricular guidelines, but we should NOT be in favor of the sort of highly prescriptive standards and high stakes assessments that are coming with Common Core. And we also need to be concerned about the shift of resources away from classroom professionals and into technology, and the huge expansion of data systems, both of which are part and parcel of the Common Core project. And they are also correct about the undemocratic process that has been pursued to develop the Common Core, and the way the Department of Education has used Race to the Top bribes and NCLB waivers to coerce states into adopting the Core. We also disagree with some of their critique. But we cannot put forward a clear, compelling vision so long as we are on the sidelines in this debate - much less if we are on the wrong side altogether. Read Full Post >
The Democratic Party has an internal battle ahead that goes to the very core of its spirit. Educators remain a core constituency, and public education reflects absolute core values. But the resolution by the California party convention is a signal that the road may no longer be smooth for leaders who embrace privatization and school closures. And the new focus by the GOP on an ever-less popular Common Core puts some Democrats in a spot where they do not have much wiggle room. Read Full Post >
