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May 13, 2013

Monty Neill: Building a Successful Test Reform Movement

Over the past few months, I've been involved in dialogues and public meetings aimed at furthering the testing reform movement. Our conversations focused on how to win key goals: less testing, lower stakes, and better assessment practices. In this post, I focus on basic goals and strategy for launching a campaign. In subsequent posts, I will discuss the importance of pushing for high-quality assessments, and then propose tactics to educate the public, develop strong coalitions, and persuade policymakers.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:55 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

May 04, 2013

Rebirth: New Orleans -- Documentary Poses a Moral Dilemma

this highlights for me, the moral dimension that Merrow ignores, when, at the end of the film, he proclaims this experiment a success. How can we accept that a third of the schools in New Orleans have been consigned to the status of dumping grounds for the other two thirds? How can we celebrate the creation of a system that allows schools to wall themselves off from students who are the most damaged by poverty and violence - and relegates those students to schools that cannot possibly succeed in this competitive scheme?  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 08:03 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 28, 2013

John Thompson: Garland and Carr Remind Us of the Perils of Segregation

At the end of their balanced histories, Carr and Garland voice concerns about our increasingly segregated schools, and the willingness of policy wonks to impose their theories on poor children of color. Garland concludes that "desegregation should have been a two-way street." She is frustrated that desegregation was dismantled without "salvaging its undeniable benefits." Contemporary reformers have ignored its lessons. They also focus on "tearing out dysfunction and blight, instead of finding existing strengths and building on what people value." Garland, explains, "Once again, ... those in power are treating black schools as they did black neighborhoods during urban renewal - with an imperious sense of what is good for the community, regardless of what the people there want."  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:08 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 24, 2013

Jack Hassard: School Closings in Our Cities: A Deep Ecological Problem

As Deming (1994a) points out, beware of common sense when we think about such issues as ranking children by grades, ranking schools and teachers by test scores, and rewards and punishments. Deming believes that grades should be abolished, and that the ranking of people and schools should not occur. And significant to the issue of school closure, Deming suggests that taking action (such as closing a school today) may produce more problems in the future, and that a better remedy would be investigate why children in poor neighborhoods are not doing well on state mandated tests, and then do something about it.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 03:57 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 08, 2013

Chicago Students Boycott the NAEP to Demand Safety

So we acted. We talked to other seniors and got them to wear black and taught them about how they didn't have to take the test. We told them that this wasn't a service learning opportunity, and that the NAEP scores might be used against schools like ours. We talked through texting and social media. On the day of the test, we were called out of class to attend the test. Some of my classmates refused to come. We went to the location and we told the test proctor that we didn't want to take the test and asked if we could return to our regular classes.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 00:04 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 02, 2013

Georgia Religious Schools Skirt Constitution to Access Taxpayer Funds

To be clear, what is happening here is that individual taxpayers can direct the funds that are being diverted from the state tax coffers towards their own children's tuition, or that of their friends. Vouchers have proven to be highly unpopular with voters, as they divert scarce funds from public schools and unconstitutionally allow them to pay for religious instruction. This violates the state constitution's prohibition against tax moneys being spent "directly, or indirectly" on religious organizations. This law is an end run around the Constitutions of the State of Georgia, and the United States, and if Earl Ehrhart has his way, this week the state will toss another $30 million into the pot.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:14 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

November 19, 2012

Florida School Closures: Why Are High Poverty Schools Under the Gun?

Some parents at the school, such as Mike Nunez, ask the poignant question, "Does it really all come down to money, class, and/or race?" Nunez notes South Lake Elementary has one of the highest poverty and minority rates of all the nearly 100 schools in the district. He stated that in the history of Brevard County, six schools in the North Area have been closed, with each of them lying in economically depressed areas (never in any areas considered to be "Affluent" neighborhoods). Additionally, Nunez suggests that no written criteria for how schools were chosen for possible closures have been found.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:29 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

November 12, 2012

Bad Teaching Practice #1: "I am Only Going to Teach Those Who Are Ready To Learn"

Have you ever heard this one? A number of times in my career, I heard teachers, usually new ones, it must be said, announce in frustration that they were sick and tired of dealing with the kids who were disrupting class, and that from that point forward, they were going to forget about the "ones who...  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:59 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

November 02, 2012

Are Education "Reformers" Becoming Privatizers?

Will they continue to support special exemptions that allow Teach For America novices to be considered "highly qualified teachers"? Will they support the expansion of charter schools and the use of the deceptive "parent trigger" even as they increase segregation and leave the toughest to teach students behind? Will they support the expansion of sham virtual schools like K12 Inc even as they divert public funds to clearly inferior alternatives?  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:11 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

October 30, 2012

Powerful Coalition Opposes NCLB Waivers in New Jersey

A remarkable coalition of individuals and organizations, many of them with deep roots in the African American and Latino communities, is calling upon the Department of Education to abandon plans to implement new policies associated with NCLB waivers in the state of New Jersey. In the past, some le...  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 07:39 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

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