Two snow days this week = extra posting over at the mother ship, so I’ll be a little selective this week. This week, more Arne Duncan shenanigans, Brookings and CAP get silly, and Common Core gets the love.
Womb to Workplace Pipeline Under Construction
If you think people worried about a cradle-to-career Big Brothery pipeline are extra paranoid, let me show you what the Department of Labor’s been working on.
A pair of Education Next writers look at some hard data and reach some squishy conclusions (spoiler alert: it’s still all the teachers’ fault).
If I had to tell a parent why to choose public school over a charter...
When schools forget that they are there to serve student needs, and not the other way around, things start to go backwards.
Arne Duncan tries to give a big plug to the outgoing governor of Massachusetts. Once again, he fumbles his facts a bit.
Do Special Ed Advocates Want To Use Students?
Why do advocates for children with special needs argue so much for testing? Could it be to generate lobbying talking points?
Will 2015 Be Another Roughg Year for Common Core?
Spoiler alert: Yes. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Arne Duncan is about to call for a repeal of NCLB. Here’s why nobody should get excited about it.
Sigh. Another Teacher CCSS Love Letter.
A Tennessee teacher of the year pens another of those silly promotions of the Common Core.
Boston won the right to be the USA’s Olympic bid city for 2024. What if we decide to run the Olympics the Common Core way?
Brookings Fails To Make a Case For Annual Testing
The folks at Brookings take a stab at arguing in favor of annual testing. It’s a four-part argument, and they come up 0-4.
The New Jersey Charter School Association decided the best way to deal with inconvenient facts is to try to smear and silence the folks who talk about those facts.
CAP tries to make the case that we’re no longer hemorrhaging young teachers. They made a few mistakes (starting with a picture of a TFA recruit who quit teaching after two years-- oops).
The Great Chain of Effectiveness
Maybe the idea of linking college teacher prep programs to K-12 student test results is actually awesome. Maybe it doesn’t go far enough.
Some reformsters keep talking as if there’s a great mountain of parents demanding that schools test their kids so that they know how the kids are doing. Where are these parents hiding, exactly?