Small Colleges Drop SAT
(Cross posted from http://benwaxman.blogspot.com) Across the country, dozens of small liberal-arts colleges are dropping the SAT requirement for admissions. This trend started a few years ago and is an...
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Students, Schools, Society; When We Pass, We Fail the Whole
Please view Visual and Musical Ode: Whole Child Educationcopyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.orgEducators today learn more than they teach. However, often the lessons are as is the curriculum,...
View ArticleEli's a-comin' (satire on billionaire Eli Broad, education expert)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ELI'S BOLD NEW PLAN 12/2/2007Billionaire philanthropist, entrepreneur, and public education expert Eli Broad has teamed up with the International Star Registry to promote a...
View ArticleTesting Mania in Full Swing
Our students are bent over their desks, furiously bubbling in their answer sheets. The school year up to this point has been largely devoted to preparing them for this, the ultimate test of their worth...
View ArticleTexas Education Chair: Significant?
Texas Governor Rick Perry chose to appoint a woman who had been a member of the state education board to the chair position who is reportedly a creationist. Here is a link to a summary of the record:...
View ArticleStudy shows standardized testing frenzy leaving more children behind
As an eighth grade English teacher in a Joplin, Missouri, public school, I am exposed everyday to an ever-increasing emphasis on high-stakes, standardized tests, tests that I have seen sap children of...
View ArticleMerit pay based on test scores is a deeply flawed idea
It would be a dream scenario for any high school basketball coach- arriving at practice every day with an athletic front line, averaging six feet, nine inches tall (and able to handle the ball) and a...
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Time to call bullshit on Bipartisan War on Public Education
Both Barack Obama and his secretary of education have praised a Rhode Island district for firing all their teachers to supposedly help the school's performance. But in what other endeavor in life is...
View Article$22 million high-stakes test scam involves no-bid contracts and conflict of...
A $22 million no-bid contract and a conflict of interest. Sounds like a perfect topic for a New York Times investigation, doesn’t it, especially considering that the shenanigans have taken place under...
View ArticleWinner-take-all exams testing the limits
The second week of state standardized testing begins today at the school where I teach. The reputation of my school and all of the teachers in it rests on a poorly written examination that seems aimed...
View ArticleThere is no crisis in public education
After a decade of the nonsense of No Child Left Behind and its deeply flawed offspring, Race to the Top, I am waiting for one courageous politician to come out and say what has always been the case-...
View ArticleThoughts on education
(This is a note I posted on Facebook. I'd like to get more feedback.)I just finished rereading one of my favorite books - Robert Caro's The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.That...
View ArticleLA Times and Teachers' Effectiveness
The LA Times has begun the publication of a report on a very large research study they have undertaken on teachers' effectiveness. Read about it here:http://www.latimes.com/...In response, the LA...
View ArticleArne Duncan: a new kind of standardized test
Arne Duncan has been listening to us, I guess, about the limitations of the fill-in-the-bubble test, and he has an answer:New York Times: U.S. Asks Educators to Reinvent Student Tests, and How They Are...
View ArticleMore grim realities of the Chinese education system
JISHOU, HUNAN, CHINA — Classes have been in session for two weeks now. Everything's going well, but I've had my first major run-in with the monolithic Chinese education system.As was the case last...
View ArticleMoney Moves No Minds
Why Teach For America Works - Michelle Rheecopyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.orgIn the Fall, this year and every year, in this nation talk turns to Education. The President of the United...
View ArticleImagine a nation with excellent schools
Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciencesImagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with...
View ArticleToo Much Testing
Kids take a lot of tests, and there is a lot of confusion about which tests are which.As parents we oppose high-stakes standardized tests which are used to hold teachers and schools “accountable” under...
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Test, Test, Test: California 5th Grade Science STAR test
So often when we talk about standardized testing in public schools, we end up talking across one another. Us grown-ups remember the tests we took, either with the sensation of quivering goo inside or...
View ArticleWas NEA endorsement of Obama the lesser of two evils?
The National Education Association wasted no time today endorsing the re-election of President Obama, a decision that came as no surprise to anyone. After all, it doesn’t matter which candidate the...
View ArticleEnding Teacher Tenure
Why?What are the implications of ending teacher tenure?Who is behind "Ending Teacher Tenure"?Where did it begin?When did the movement to end teacher tenure begin?How does one sort through the arguments...
View ArticleMy petition on education
The White House is now allowing petitions to be posted, and 5000 signees will get you an official response!This dairy will be a short but sweet run down of the contents of my petition. Long story...
View ArticleNCLB at 10: Unanswerable Assumptions
Dana Goldstein has a rather. . . inexplicably passive . . . piece on "A Decade of No Child Left Behind" at The Nation Online. I recognize that not all of the Nation online folks are prime time Nation...
View ArticleCO HB 12-1049: Bringing Common Sense To Education
Colorado State Representative Judy Solano recently introduced CO HB 12-1049, giving parents the authority to decide if their child should take the TCAP (formerly CSAP) exams, or allow them to be exempt...
View Article"The Pineapple and the Hare"
A couple of days ago my social networks exploded with chatter about the story that a crazy passage about a talking pineapple had appeared on a New York state reading exam for eighth-graders. Words like...
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Testing-driven education means giant corporate profits and 'pineapples don't...
In the past week, an unbelievably stupid set of questions on a New York standardized test has made headlines. As a result, the state education commissioner has announced that the questions won't be...
View ArticleOver-Testing Our Children: The Hare and Pineapple Redux
About 10 days ago, Laura Clawson published a story on the profit-making standardized test industry (inspired by the so-called Leave No Child Behind law) that has taken over our classrooms and imposed a...
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My Granddaddy Attended A Failing School*
Being a history teacher means any time I have the pleasure of finding artifacts I want to learn as much as I can from them. Sometimes the lessons I receive don't have the outcome I wanted, but still...
View ArticleReflecting upon an experience with a student
I still remember her.She was a shy girl, very pretty, but concerned because she wore glasses and braces.She was quite bright, but easily panicked, particularly when taking tests.I talked with her...
View ArticleWashington State Teachers Rebel Against Useless Tests
Washington State teachers are refusing to give the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) tests. The revolt began at Garfield High School in the Seattle School District when teachers there were informed...
View ArticleTesting Kills the Joy of Teaching and Learning
On the campaign trail in 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush offered his thoughts on education reform, advocating for more emphasis on assessment. Governor Bush, who later as president signed into law...
View ArticleEugene Robinson: The racket with standardized test scores
It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform — requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test...
View ArticleDon't Use Me to Attack Public Education
Considering everything that has happened to me over the past three months- losing my teaching job and being smeared in a public hearing by public school administrators, I would guess no one would blame...
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If American students' test scores are a wake-up call, what should we wake up...
American students are struggling in the rankings of an international test released Tuesday, and the battle is on over how to interpret that:While U.S. teenagers were average in reading and science,...
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Chicagoans join together to ice the ISAT standardized test
"Standardized testing encourages rigid scripted teach-to-the-test curricula devoid of educational exploration. The human element that makes great teaching and engaged learning is ruthlessly crushed...
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TX-Gov: Wendy Davis (D) Fights Back Against Standardized Testing 4 Year Olds
Received this e-mail today from State Senator Wendy Davis' (D. TX) gubernatorial campaign today: This week, Texas students began another round of standardized STAAR tests. At the same time, Greg...
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OH-Gov: FitzGerald (D) Calls For Superintendent To Resign Over Handling Of...
OH Superintendent Richard Ross (R) former advisor to Gov. John Kasich (R. OH) (L) Agree: http://www.cleveland.com/... Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald and the Ohio Education Association...
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Standardized tests in Texas: It's like using a bathroom scale to measure height
Last week I posted an article about how some folks in Lorain County, OH, are fighting excessive amounts of standardized testing in Ohio.I didn't realize this would generate so much controversy. A few...
View ArticleThis Is Why We Are All Opting Out!
School Board Meeting OPT OUT 3/18/15QUESTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT1. General opt out questions What is the US DOE’s position on the opt- out movement? Has any school district in the United States of...
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Teacher explains how standardized testing is hurting her first graders
A New York teacher has written a remarkable letter to Diane Ravitch explaining how the focus on standardized testing is hurting her students. Her first-grade students. Even though these kids won't be...
View ArticleMultiple choice tests and the anti-education American voter
I just came across an article in Scientific American reporting a speech by the very well-respected psychologist Robert Sternberg. Among other things, Sternberg has studied intelligence and wisdom.His...
View ArticleIf You Can Make It In New York City . . .
For those of us who live in a rational, data-based world, it can no longer be argued that school discipline disparities can be attributed to the fictitious oddities of “the Black family,”...
View ArticleMassachusetts forced to pull grossly racist question from required graduation...
Every student in Massachusetts has to take one test to graduate, and this year, students anxious about their educational futures were confronted with a question so racist the state has been forced to...
View ArticleScience and Politics on Juneteenth: Two Intersections
Today a colleague (Philip Phillips) and I published a letter in Science, calling on our scientific professional societies to quit holding meetings in cities with bad police brutality records,...
View ArticleThe pandemic has proved standardized testing isn’t necessary. Why are we...
This story was originally published at Prism. By Umme HoqueStandardized testing requirements have been a lightning rod for controversy. Critics argue the tests are a distraction for teachers and...
View ArticleStandardized Testing during a Pandemic is Ridiculous
There is a children’s picture book You Look Ridiculous (Bernard Waber, 1966) that I really like because of the lesson that it teaches. Some things are just ridiculous and shouldn’t be done. I put the...
View ArticleThinking like Engineers About College Admissions
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film “The Fablemans” has a good scene about engineering. While still a child, Spielberg tries to make a cowboy film, using fake guns that don’t even shoot...
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