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Recent Posts
- 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
- Mississippi: Progress Commanding Attention or Outright Miracle? 18/07/2023
- The High Price of the Education Writers Association’s News 28/03/2023
- The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation, and Selfishness 25/03/2023
- This Private Equity Firm Is Amassing Companies That Collect Data on America’s Children 11/02/2023
- Iowa Academic Standards Hold Teachers Hostage 31/10/2022
Comments
- Betty Peters on Reading Before Writing
- a on Stanford Professor Jo Boaler’s Math Revolution and War Against Algebra 2
- Samuel Adams Richardson, Sr. on Cheating in the Classroom: We all have a choice
- Math Teacher 101 on Stanford Professor Jo Boaler’s Math Revolution and War Against Algebra 2
Authors
Category Archives: Curriculum & Instruction
Mississippi: Progress Commanding Attention or Outright Miracle?
Due to comments from others about Mississippi, I thought it would be useful to post a short message with some of the data I have been looking at recently that tells me while Mississippi’s educational improvements are not in the … Continue reading
Iowa Academic Standards Hold Teachers Hostage
By Joye Walker I retired more than a year ago, giving me many months to process the discomfort I felt in my last few years of teaching. It was a difficult time for many reasons, but one big reason stands … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core, Curriculum & Instruction, Joye Walker, K-12, math, Mathematics, STEM
Tagged Depth of Knowledge, DOK, Iowa, Iowa Academic Standards
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The absolute worst “real world” problem I have ever encountered
by Joye Walker It was in the UCSMP Algebra 2 book and I encountered it during my first year of teaching. Here was the opening linear programming example. *** Stuart Dent decided to investigate one of his typical meals, fried … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Joye Walker, K-12, math, Mathematics
Tagged real world math problems, UCSMP Math
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Do We Still Need Public Schools?
Sandra Stotsky, April 2022 Do we still want a chief policy maker in in the Department of Education with little classroom teaching experience beyond grade 5 who has never administered a middle or high school? No particular ethnicity or race … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Curriculum & Instruction, Education Reform, K-12, math, reading, Sandra Stotsky
Tagged charter schools, private schools, school choice
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In Praise of Memorization
by Pearl Leff I once worked at a small company of insanely productive engineers. They were geniuses by any account. They knew the software stack from top to bottom, from hardware to operating systems to Javascript, and could pull together … Continue reading
Reading Before Writing
Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review8 September 2018 The extra-large ubiquitous Literacy Community is under siege from universal dissatisfaction with the Writing skills of both students and graduates, and this is a complaint of very long standing. The Community response is … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Humanities, K-12, Reading & Writing, Will Fitzhugh
Tagged academic rigor, education, standards
1 Comment
Rate Busters
Will FitzhughThe Concord Review1 September 2021 Back in the day, when Union contracts specified the number of widgets each worker was expected to produce during a shift, that number was called “the rate.” Anyone who produced more than that number … Continue reading
Cheating in the Classroom: We all have a choice
I was naive about cheating as a student, so I was also naive as a professor. Then one day a student complained to me about cheating during my exam. That put me in an awkward position. The culture of my … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Education Fraud, Ethics, K-12, Testing/Assessment
Tagged cheat sheet, cheating, Rousseau
1 Comment
Rare Books
There is a general consensus among EduPundits that teacher quality is more important than student academic work in producing student academic achievement. That is mistaken. There is a general consensus among Social Studies educators that High School students are incapable … Continue reading
The Sabotage of Public Education
By Bruce Deitrick Price Genuine rigorous testing of educational ideas is rare in America. Why? Because practical testing usually goes against what the professors want to do. Their impractical ideas don’t perform well in the real world. For example, Operation … Continue reading
Comments of Mary Byrne to Springfield, MO public schools board on critical race theory
Mary R. Byrne, Ed.D.December 8, 2020______________________________________________________________ I’d like to address Focus Area 5, Goal 1 of the 2019-2020 Strategic Plan End of Year Report that will be presented tonight specifically with regard to the following language: Facing Racism training objectives … Continue reading
K–12: The Life and Death of the Mind
By Bruce Deitrick Price The life of the mind. This lovely phrase states what education is supposed to be about.. All things bright and cerebral. Play chess. Write a story. Devise a plan for any goal. Weigh evidence for and … Continue reading
Stanford Professor Jo Boaler’s Math Revolution and War Against Algebra 2
Recently, Stanford GSE professor Jo Boaler, the foremost champion for reform math, has scaled up her campaign to displace algebra 2 with “data science” in American high schools: https://www.salon.com/2020/09/26/teaching-data-science-instead-of-calculus-high-schools-math-debate/?fbclid=IwAR2_EUTcMIrSEK2Y2HffJchGn4EKZ7IQOK4ePvGxttvl407m2Oo8Ut8nj7Q. For decades, Stanford University has lent its prestigious fame to help … Continue reading
Posted in constructivism, Curriculum & Instruction, K-12, math, Mathematics
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Academic Fitness
A few years ago I was at a conference of a few hundred History/Social Studies educators, consultants, etc. at the Center for the Study of the Senate in Boston. I was introduced, as The Concord Review and I had recently … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, History, Humanities, K-12, reading, Will Fitzhugh
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Breaking the Spell of Math Reformists
by Ling Huang, Palo Alto, California In “My Childhood Schooling In The Soviet Union Was Better Than My Kids’ In U.S. Public Schools Today,” https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/27/childhood-schooling-in-soviet-union-better-than-u-s-public-schools-today/ Katya Sedgwick wrote, “Math was the dissident’s favorite in the Soviet Union. It was believed that … Continue reading
Posted in constructivism, Curriculum & Instruction, K-12, math, Mathematics
1 Comment
Here’s how Idaho can develop academically strong ELA and Mathematics Standards when it revises its current standards*
By Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas Idaho can develop effective non-Common Core standards for mathematics and English/reading if its Legislature requires the development of K-12 standards in mathematics and in English/reading with the following features and guiding policies: … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core, Curriculum & Instruction, Education policy, K-12, Mathematics, Reading & Writing, Sandra Stotsky
Tagged Idaho, standards
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K-12 is a land of mystery
Bruce Dietrick Price* For those who enjoy a good puzzle, K-12 education is more intellectually entertaining than most people imagine. Classrooms are full of convoluted theories and mystifying methods. Probably the teachers themselves can’t explain the reasoning behind approaches that … Continue reading
Who’s Telling the Truth about Alabama’s Constitutional Amendment One?
As a former member of the Alabama State School Board (2003-2019), I would like to share my concerns about the ballot language for Amendment One. When voters get a ballot on March 3, this is all that is printed in … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core, Curriculum & Instruction, Education Fraud, Education policy, information suppression, K-12
Tagged Alabama
2 Comments
Response to John Merrow’s advocacy of Project-based Learning
John Merrow has started a series of posts advocating project based learning. I just posted the following to his website: Last Week, Water. This Week, AIR. (The Series Continues) John, It’s disappointing to see you disparaging the teaching of factual information: … Continue reading
Should we switch from mandated “standardized” tests to mandated “performance” tests?
Sandra Stotsky, August 1, 2019 According to many education writers in this country, there are no tests in Finnish schools, at least no “mandated standardized tests.” That phrase was carefully hammered out by Smithsonian Magazine to exclude the many no- … Continue reading
