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Recent Posts
- Math Anxiety 13/01/2025
- New article: Fact-checking Research Claims about Math Education in Manitoba 14/12/2024
- New article: Qianruo Shen’s “Integrated Curriculum Reform and its Impact on Science Education — Why is the West Falling Behind East Asia in PISA and TIMSS?” 09/12/2024
- Comments on Zearn’s “Myth of the Math Kid” 15/08/2024
- Texas School Districts Violated a Law Intended to Add Transparency to Local Elections 29/04/2024
- The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation and Selfishness [book review] 07/09/2023
- The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation and Selfishness [book review] 04/08/2023
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Authors
Author Archives: Richard P Phelps
Robert T. Oliphant, 1924-2014
Robert T. Oliphant 1924-2014 Bob Oliphant passed away in June, 2014. He was one of the most optimistic and generous people I’ve ever met, and one of my best friends. That despite the fact that we never met face-to-face—a typical … Continue reading
No Child Left Behind Renewal: Blinders on Education Policy
Two weeks ago, The Honorable Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) invited three allegedly independent education researchers to discuss possible revisions to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently … Continue reading
Using middle schoolers for anti-testing advocacy?
Superintendent Mark D. LaRoach Vestal School District, New York Dear Superintendent LaRoach: I conduct research on the effects of standardized testing on student achievement. I have read over 3 thousand studies dating back a century and spanning over thirty countries. … Continue reading
Overtesting or Overcounting?
Commenting on the Center for American Progress’s (CAP’s) report, Testing Overload in America’s Schools, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2014/10/16/99073/testing-overload-in-americas-schools/ …and the Education Writers’ Association coverage of it, http://www.ewa.org/blog-ed-beat/how-much-time-do-students-spend-taking-tests … Some testing opponents have always said there is overtesting, no matter how much there has … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Education policy, K-12, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged Center for, overtesting, standardized, testing
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Kamenetz, A. (2015). The Test: Why our schools are obsessed with standardized testing—but you don’t have to be. New York: Public Affairs. Book Review, by Richard P. Phelps
Perhaps it is because I avoid most tabloid journalism that I found journalist Anya Kamenetz’s loose cannon Introduction to The Test: Why our schools are obsessed with standardized testing—but you don’t have to be so jarring. In the space of … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Education policy, K-12, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged assessment, EWA, NPR, overtesting, schools, standardized testing
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Press Release: Study Finds Common Core Math Standards Will Reduce Enrollment in High-Level High School Math Courses, Dumb Down College STEM Curriculum Lower standards, alignment of SAT to Common Core likely to hurt low-income students the most
http://pioneerinstitute.org/download/study-finds-common-core-math-standards-will-reduce-enrollment-in-high-level-high-school-math-courses-dumb-down-college-stem-curriculum/ BOSTON – Common Core math standards (CCMS) end after just a partial Algebra II course. This weak Algebra II course will result in fewer high school students able to study higher-level math and science courses and an increase in … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Education policy, K-12, Mathematics
Tagged common core, mathematics, Pioneer Institute
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The Gauntlet: How think tanks and federally-funded centers misrepresent and suppress other education research
New in the Nonpartisan Education Review: http://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Essays/v10n1.htm The aggressive, career-strategic behavior of researchers in federally funded centers and think tanks creates many problems, including a loss of useful information and bad public policies based on skewed information. But, two adverse … Continue reading
Posted in Education policy, K-12, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment, Uncategorized
Tagged Brookings, censorship, Chingos, CRESST, GAO, Goertz, information suppression, NRC, research bias
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Large-scale educational testing in Chile: Some thoughts
Recently in the auditorium of Universidad Finis Terrae, I argued that Chile’s Prueba de Selección Universitaria (PSU) cannot be “fixed” and should be scrapped. I do not, however, advocate the elimination of university entrance examinations but, rather, the creation of … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Education policy, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged Agencia de Calidad de la Educacion, assessment, Chile, fairness in testing, MIDE UC, OECD, predictive validity, Prueba de Selección Universitaria, PSU, SIMCE, standardized testing, Universidad Finis Terrae, university admission, World Bank
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GAO Could Do More
U.S. GAO Could Do More in Examining Educator Cheating on Tests The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a research agency of the U.S. Congress, continues its foray into the field of standardized testing. It started at least as far back … Continue reading
Try Trying
Educator testing scandals have lit up the news wires recently and some call the cheating unprecedented. It is not unprecedented; journalists simply paid little attention to the issue before now. To my mind, the most profound factoid revealed by the … Continue reading
Campbell’s Law is like Campbell’s Soup
Campbell’s Law is like Campbell’s Soup: Ubiquitous and Innocuous You became familiar with Campbell’s Law when only a few days old and by age two had mastered it. As a parent, you would have witnessed your children discovering, learning, and … Continue reading
The OECD meets to discuss assessment
The OECD meets to discuss assessment, Open minds on assessment policy likely not invited http://congrex.no/oecdoslo2013/ A hoodwinked OECD is one result of our profession’s tolerance of censorship and suppression of information on assessment policy and its related research. http://www.nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Resources/RotSpreadsOverseas.pdf
Posted in Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment
Tagged accountability, CRESST, education policy, Norway, OECD, standardized testing
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About Us
This is the blog of Nonpartisan Education Review board members. Quoting from the Review‘s “About Us” page: “There are two sides to every U.S. education policy debate …and that is the problem. “Those two sides — public education’s entrenched … Continue reading
