Category Archives: K-12

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 , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, Education journalism, K-12, math, Mathematics, Richard Innes, US Education Department | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in Common Core, Education journalism, Education policy, Education Writers Association, K-12 | Leave a comment

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 | Leave a comment

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 , , , | Leave a comment

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 , | 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

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 , , | 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

Posted in College prep, Curriculum & Instruction, History, Humanities, K-12, Reading & Writing, Social Studies, Will Fitzhugh | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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 , , | 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

Posted in College prep, Curriculum & Instruction, History, Humanities, K-12, Reading & Writing, Social Studies, Will Fitzhugh | Leave a comment

Hershey Profits Fund $17 Billion Endowment for Nonprofit School, but Board Member Says It Won’t Let Him See Financial Records

(This story was originally published by ProPublica.) by Bob Fernandez, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Charlotte Keith, Spotlight PA ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your … Continue reading

Posted in Ethics, information suppression, K-12 | Leave a comment

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

Posted in Curriculum & Instruction, History, Humanities, K-12, Mary Byrne, Social Studies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

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

Posted in Bruce Dietrick Price, Common Core, constructivism, Curriculum & Instruction, information suppression, K-12 | 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

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 | 2 Comments

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 | Leave a comment

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 , | Leave a comment

What can we do now: Education in America is a victim of Covid 19

AL’s education rating is already at the bottom of the heap nationally, but I don’t think any states are faring well today, and I don’t think any states have a solution. Am I alone in thinking that American education is … Continue reading

Posted in Betty Peters, Education policy, K-12 | Tagged , | Leave a comment