On NCLB’s birthday, Diane Ravitch suggests that we’re prancing around in our birthday suits (Grading Schools):
I find myself (once again) in the uncomfortable position of seeing ideas that I have supported as part of a broader set of reforms turn into unhealthy obsessions. I feel like someone who said that people should wear hats and then turned around to discover that people were talking about nothing else but their hats and walking around naked.
Deb, I think that one of the things that has occasionally drawn us together is that we both have a vision about education, what it might be, even when we disagree about this or that detail. Now I find that no one seems to talk about education anymore, just testing and accountability.
More on NCLB in a bit.