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Recent Posts
- Equitable Grading 04/09/2025
- Comparing states by only looking at overall NAEP average scores can provide incomplete analysis of performance 07/08/2025
- What does NAEP say about the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project? 07/08/2025
- Reading performance in the US is a serious problem 07/08/2025
- Grade 4 Reading – Is NAEP’s standard for proficiency set too high? 07/08/2025
- Math Anxiety 13/01/2025
- New article: Fact-checking Research Claims about Math Education in Manitoba 14/12/2024
Comments
- David D. Baskerville on Breaking the Spell of Math Reformists
- Albert B. Franklin on About Us / Comments
- Bryan on Comments on Zearn’s “Myth of the Math Kid”
- Betty Peters on Reading Before Writing
Authors
Category Archives: K-12
Equitable Grading
I think most of these policies are not good for math students. I am OK with test retakes (one per test) if a student scored below 75% on a test, and the maximum possible retake score is 75%. It encourages … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Ethics, Joye Walker, K-12, Mathematics, teachers
Tagged academic rigor, assessment, grading, standards
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Comparing states by only looking at overall NAEP average scores can provide incomplete analysis of performance
One of the more notable problems with much that is written about the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) regarding relative state performances is that far too often, only overall average scores are compared. Whether we are talking college professors, … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, K-12, Reading & Writing, Richard Innes, Testing/Assessment
Tagged Mississippi
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What does NAEP say about the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project?
There is a lot of discussion of late about Lucy Caulkins’ Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP)to teach reading. It got me thinking. Back in 2003, then New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein really pushed TCRWP as THE … Continue reading
Reading performance in the US is a serious problem
Whether we use NAEP or state assessments, reading performance in the US is a serious problem, and trying to excuse this away just doesn’t work. There’s been a lot of discussion from some teachers and Ed school professors about how … Continue reading
Math Anxiety
I dealt with test anxiety among my honors students when I was teaching. From my perspective, it mostly arose from one of the following situations: I saw many students over the years deal with these sorts of issues. The first … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Curriculum & Instruction, Joye Walker, K-12, math, Mathematics, Testing/Assessment
Tagged anxiety, math anxiety
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New article: Fact-checking Research Claims about Math Education in Manitoba
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Resources/Fact-checking_research_claims_about_math_education_in_Manitoba.pdf EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In a Winnipeg Free Press article, Mathematics education of Manitoba teachers should be based on research (November 13, 2024), Dr. Martha Koch, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, made several … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Education policy, Governance, Higher Education, information suppression, K-12, licensure, Mathematics, Uncategorized
Tagged academic rigor, course requirements, education school, Manitoba, math education, standards, teacher standards, teacher training
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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?”
Abstract: This paper investigates why western nations underperform in PISA and TIMSS compared to East Asia and explores the root causes of the decline in science education. By analyzing TIMSS data and comparing the science curricula and teacher qualifications in … Continue reading
Comments on Zearn’s “Myth of the Math Kid”
https://time.com/7008332/math-kid-myth-essay/ I really find these kinds of articles tiresome, because the accusations or “myths” as expressed by Shalinee Sharma, are assumptions made by people who are generalizing about all math teaching in order to peddle their programs. The first myth … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Education journalism, Joye Walker, K-12, math, Mathematics, STEM
Tagged accuracy, aptitude, math ability, math education, Shalinee Sharma, TIME magazine, Zearn
1 Comment
Texas School Districts Violated a Law Intended to Add Transparency to Local Elections
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune analyzed 35 Texas school districts that held trustee elections last fall and found none that posted all of the required campaign finance records. by Lexi Churchill and Jessica Priest ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, information suppression, K-12
Tagged bond issues, education governance, elections, school elections, voting
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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
Posted in Common Core, Education Fraud, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Reform, information suppression, K-12, partisanship, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, US Education Department
Tagged Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, citation cartels, CRESST, information suppression, pack funding, strategic partnerships, think tanks
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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
The High Price of the Education Writers Association’s News
EWA’s Form 990 tax filings to the IRS for the five tax years 2015 to 2019 reveal the following: Tax Year | Membership Dues ($000s) | Contributions (gifts, grants, etc.) ($000s)2015 | 19.2 | 2,797.82016 | 20.6 | 3,419.62017 | … Continue reading
This Private Equity Firm Is Amassing Companies That Collect Data on America’s Children
Vista Equity Partners has been buying up software used in schools. Parents want to know what the companies do with kids’ data By: Todd Feathers Over the past six years, a little-known private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, has built … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, FERPA, K-12, privacy
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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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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
