Category Archives: Education Reform

The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation and Selfishness [book review]

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, April 2023, 196 pages, ISBN 9781475869941 With scholarly precision, Phelps details the collection of actors that have driven and continue to propel U.S. education policy and preferred narratives. In doing so, he has laid out a … Continue reading

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The Malfunction of US Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation, and Selfishness

Looks like ebook/kindle version is now available. “Look Inside” feature on Amazon shows Preface and Intro. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-malfunction-of-us-education-policy-richard-p-phelps-founder-of-nonpartisan-education-review-author-and-editor-of-correcting-fallacies-about-educa/1142557816 https://www.amazon.com/Malfunction-Education-Policy-Misinformation-Disinformation/dp/1475869940/

Posted in Censorship, Common Core, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, Education Writers Association, Richard P. Phelps | Leave a comment

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 , , | Leave a comment

Hoping for a Stronger Focus on Public Education after November 3, 2020

Whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins in the presidential election of 2020, we need a new kind of Secretary of Education—someone who has classroom teaching experience beyond grade 5 and has administered an elementary, middle, or high school for … Continue reading

Posted in Education policy, Education Reform, ESSA, K-12, Reading & Writing, Sandra Stotsky | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Richard Phelps: Is our education system failing us? Critically Speaking

CriticallySpeak @CritiSpeak https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/013-dr-richard-phelps-is-our-education-system-failing-us/id1463016517?i=1000445232433 K12 is in trouble! Johnny can’t read, write or do arithmetic, even with a college degree. Interview with Dr. Richard Phelps CriticallySpeaking podcast ‎Critically Speaking on Apple Podcasts ‎@@string1@@ · 2019 podcasts.apple.com

Posted in constructivism, Curriculum & Instruction, Education Fraud, Education policy, Education Reform, International Tests, K-12, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment | Leave a comment

Education Next, the Fordham Institute, and Common Core

In years of observing the behavior of staff at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Institute I haven’t noticed much of the “open-mindedness and humility” claimed on its website.[1] More common has been a proclivity to suppress dissent, shun or … Continue reading

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US Education’s Dominant Research Method: Cherry Picking Evidence

https://truthinamericaneducation.com/education-reform/us-educations-dominant-research-method-cherry-picking-evidence/

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Links to articles on standards-based grading

Competency based ed which is the method that will come as an outgrowth of SBG. What is measured will improve.  So this from Peter Greene applies.  https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/11/can-competency-based-education-be.html?m=1

Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Education Reform, K-12, Sandra Stotsky | Leave a comment

Interesting review of Arne Duncan’s book, by fellow Chicagoan Bill Ayers

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1X8WUX1KNXQ3B/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1501173065 Arne Doesn’t Learn customer review, by Dr. William C. Ayers If you pick up Arne Duncan’s How Schools Work hoping to learn something about, well, unsurprisingly I suppose, about “how schools work,” you’ll be sorely disappointed. There’s no policy … Continue reading

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Missouri’s Show-Me Institute: Where Liberty (and Censorship?) Come First

Last year, in response to one of their blog posts, I submitted a comment to the think tank/advocacy group, the Show-Me Institute, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. I describe what I did, why, and what happened in a Nonpartisan Education … Continue reading

Posted in Censorship, Education policy, Education Reform, information suppression, partisanship, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits

New in the Nonpartisan Education Review: https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/CommonCoreCollaborators.htm Phelps, R. P. (2018). Common Core Collaborators: Six Organizational Portraits. Nonpartisan Education Review/Articles, 14(3–7). – The Organization Named Achieve: Cradle of Common Core Cronyism – The Council of Chief State School Officers and … Continue reading

Posted in Censorship, College prep, Common Core, Curriculum & Instruction, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, Higher Education, information suppression, K-12, partisanship, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

State of ELA under Common Core

The Fordham Institute just came out with its “research” on reading and writing under Common Core. Fordham 2018 “research” No mention of three baseline studies that preceded Common Core. Stotsky, Goering, Jolliffe study of Arkansas high school English teachers’ assignments … Continue reading

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My letter to Bill Gates on how to prepare students for algebra

May 17, 2018 Dear Mr. Gates, You recently wrote, “Math is one area where we want to generate stronger evidence about what works. What would it take, for example, to get all kids to mastery of Algebra I?” I believe … Continue reading

Posted in Betty Peters, Curriculum & Instruction, Education Reform, K-12, Mathematics | 2 Comments

Nation’s Report Card: Common Core delivering education stagnation

https://ivn.us/2018/04/11/nations-report-card-common-core-delivering-education-stagnation/ …at the Independent Voter Network website, https://IVN.us

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New in the Nonpartisan Education Review: Dan Koretz’s Big Con

The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better, by Daniel Koretz [book review] Reviewed by Richard P. Phelps http://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Reviews/v13n1.htm

Posted in Censorship, Education Fraud, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, information suppression, K-12, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Close all USED-funded research centers: Evaluation of existing regulations: My two bits

My comments below in response to the USED request for comments on existing USED regulations. To submit your own, follow the instructions at:  https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=ED-2017-OS-0074-0001 MEMORANDUM To:  Hilary Malawer, Assistant General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Education … Continue reading

Posted in Censorship, Common Core, Education policy, Education Reform, Ethics, information suppression, K-12, OECD, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment | Tagged | 2 Comments

Students Last

Will Fitzhugh The Concord Review 6 April 2017 The great social psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan wrote that the principal problem with communication is that we think we express meaning to others, when in fact we evoke it. That is, what … Continue reading

Posted in Education Reform, History, Humanities, K-12, Social Studies, Will Fitzhugh | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Significance of PISA math results

A new round of two international comparisons of student mathematics performance came out recently and there was a lot of interest because the reports were almost simultaneous, TIMSS[1] in late November 2016 and PISA[2] just a week later. They are … Continue reading

Posted in Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, information suppression, K-12, Mathematics, OECD, Testing/Assessment, Uncategorized, Wayne Bishop | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A New Core

The Concord Review December 2, 2016 Dinosaur scholars like Mark Bauerlein argue that the decline in the humanities in our universities is caused by their retreat from their own best works—literature departments no longer celebrate great literature, history departments no … Continue reading

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More Common Core salespersons’ salaries

In a previous post, I summarized recent Form 990s—the financial reporting documents required of large US non-profits by the Internal Revenue Service—filed by three organizations. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the National Center on … Continue reading

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