Political blogger Matthew Yglesias points to a new report showing that nearly half of adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate. In that light, he contends, it's hard to argue against the need for standardized testing in schools: Under those circumstances, I find it difficult to be seized with... Read Full Post >
Will Richardson is seriously aggrieved by the curious spectacle of school standardized testing pep rallies: You have to wonder, is this really what we've come to in schools? That we have to remind kids that they are "bigger than the test" and show pictures of kids with captions like "6th Grade: N... Read Full Post >
Heads up: Our opinion blogger Anthony Cody, a science educator in Oakland, Calif., has made the NY Times with his dogged questioning of the seeming disconnect between President Obama's recent statements on testing and the U.S. Department of Education's policies. A must read. Read Full Post >
Will Richardson, the teacher-turned-tech-expert who was featured in our previous Teacher PD Sourcebook, recently gave a presentation for TEDxNYEd, a spinoff of the renowned yearly TED Talk conferences. Richardson says kids today, in the era of smartphones and constant connectivity, learn different... Read Full Post >
While the concepts of rote learning and drill-and-kill instruction have acquired negative reputations, Justin Snider, a doctoral student at Columbia University, seeks to remind educators that memorization—in the sense of "learning things by heart"—can be highly enriching for students. Memo... Read Full Post >
A new study says taking tests helps people learn, even moreso than some studying techniques. Read Full Post >
Somewhat ironically, the success of Chinese students on recent international tests has been met with a mixture of embarrassment and soul-searching back home, according to a Los Angeles Times story. Read Full Post >
In an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan highlights several areas where Democrat and Republican lawmakers should be able to agree when it comes to revamping the No Child Left Behind Act. Read Full Post >
Recognizing it had a cheating problem, with students covertly texting each other answers from their pockets during a state exam, the Mississippi Department of Education paid a company to analyze tests using "data forensics," according to the New York Times. The result? Cheating went down 70 percent,... Read Full Post >
After reviewing a standardized test his students had taken, a high school teacher discovered that eight of the 28 questions were faulty. Read Full Post >
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