10/05/09
07:28:09 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Hat tip to Alexander Russo for posting this morning on an article in the L.A. Times about Douglas Reeves’ work on "subjective grading."
"Reeves asked teachers and administrators in the United States, Australia, Canada and South America to determine a final semester grade for a student who received the following grades for assignments, in this order:
"C, C, MA (Missing Assignment), D, C, B, MA, MA, B, A.
"The educators gave the student final semester grades from A to F, Reeves said.
"Why? Because, he said, teachers use different criteria for grading."
10/01/09
08:33:51 am, Categories: Announcements [A] 09/25/09
08:40:00 am, Categories: Announcements [A] The Common Core Standards Initiative released the first draft of the first stage of its work on Monday.
Few were screaming bloody murder so it seems like the political needle is being threaded, more or less, for now.
The real questions, as always, revolve around what happens in classrooms: who teaches, what’s taught, which instructional materials are used, what is measured, and how well.
Also, if the focus is on career and college readiness, my discussions with students - in both suburban and urban schools - of late indicate that there needs to be much better and more frequent counseling. Ask a high school freshman or sophomore what they know about college pre-reqs, financial aid, and when they last met with a guidance counselor, and you’ll see what I mean.
I presented my take on the larger picture last month at a conference sponsored by America’s Choice and ACT, on a panel with reps from NGA and CCSSO, who are leading the CCSI. You can view it on C-Span: here.
Education Trust has been around the "standards" block more times than I have (this is my 3rd) and so you may want to seek their wise counsel: here.
Robert Pondiscio did a nice quick overview. Keep a close eye out for later posts by Robert et al. for additional perspectives. I am not quite the purist that the Core Knowledge folks are, but they have their finger on pulse of this and don’t pull any punches in trying to keep the debate honest and aspirations high.
09/03/09
06:12:41 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Doing something always creates some people who are unhappy. There’s always going to be some interest out there that decides, "You know what? The status quo is working for me a little bit better."
President Barack Obama, July 22, 2009
Democrats for Education Reform, Race to the Top Backgrounder
Overview
By the end of last week, a broad-based group of educators, researchers, and policy wonks had weighed in favorably on the draft Race to the Top guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education.*
The National Education Association (and a few of its allies, many of whom it directly funds) however, chose to tear a page out of a (very) old playbook and mount what might most charitably called a temper tantrum. Once again, they have chosen to mount a political attack rather than engage in constructive collaboration that could help guide $4 billion in Race to the Top funding toward credible efforts to improve K-12 public education and close achievement gaps.
It’s disappointing - to say the least - that after seven and a half years of complaining about federal education law, and 20 years after the advent of standards-based reform, the NEA is still only able to tell us mostly what it does not want to do. Its comments on the draft guidance, which were issued last Friday, are not surprising; nor are they new. They are the most recent examples of a stubborn, longstanding unwillingness to embrace change, and a stunningly tragic lack of vision, ambition, and spirit.
Here’s a DFER Backgrounder summarizing the game they’ve been running not only for months, but for years: link.
Bonus track: A page out of "Introduction to the Foundations of American Education," Allyn and Bacon: 1979.
* Here are two coalition letters on which DFER collaborated with others:
DFER with Education Trust, Center for American Progress, and the Education Equality Project: here.
DFER with the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, Education Equality Project, The New Teacher Project, The American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence, Policy Innovation in Education Network, ConnCAN, DC School Reform Now, Advance Illinois, Advance Innovative Education (Louisiana), Tennessee SCORE, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education: here.
08/31/09
05:05:21 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Andy writes about this too. If he can show me a cross section of college-educated adults other than Eduwife who had a love of reading instilled in them as high school students and are still reading classics, I would love to meet them. So, I think, would Kevin.
Ask 10 random people at a cocktail party attended by the highly educated what "classic" they’ve read lately, and see if you don’t get some really funny looks.
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