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Recent Posts
- Rate Busters 15 September, 2021
- Cheating in the Classroom: We all have a choice 13 August, 2021
- Rare Books 10 June, 2021
- Hershey Profits Fund $17 Billion Endowment for Nonprofit School, but Board Member Says It Won’t Let Him See Financial Records 24 April, 2021
- Mary Byrne’s letter to US Education Department regarding information collection under FERPA 18 January, 2021
- The Sabotage of Public Education 18 January, 2021
- Comments of Mary Byrne to Springfield, MO public schools board on critical race theory 30 December, 2020
Comments
- 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
- Math Teacher 101 on Breaking the Spell of Math Reformists
- David Alan Crow on Comments of Mary Byrne to Springfield, MO public schools board on critical race theory
Authors
Category Archives: Reading & Writing
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
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
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
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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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
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
PEISCH SAYS REPEALING COMMON CORE WOULD BE “HUGE MISTAKE”
It seems that some Massachusetts representatives don’t think that parents, teachers, and administrators should be allowed to vote on a secret ballot whether they want to keep Common Core’s inferior standards or return to the state’s superior standards junked by … Continue reading
Fordham Institute’s pretend research
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a report, Evaluating the Content and Quality of Next Generation Assessments,[i] ostensibly an evaluative comparison of four testing programs, the Common Core-derived SBAC and PARCC, ACT’s Aspire, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ MCAS.[ii] … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Common Core, Education policy, Education Reform, Ethics, K-12, Mathematics, Reading & Writing, research ethics, Richard P. Phelps, Testing/Assessment, Uncategorized
Tagged CCSSO, CRESST, evaluation, Fordham Institute, Gates Foundation, guidelines, HumRRO, protocols, review, rigor, SCOPE, standards, Student Achievement Partners, testing
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How the USED has managed to get it wrong, again
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/02/03/dad-my-state-now-requires-11th-graders-to-take-the-sat-not-my-daughter/ An interesting dilemma. Common Core’s writers planned for a grade 11 test that would tell us whether or not students were college and career ready. Parents and state legislators don’t know who sets the cut score, what test items … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, Common Core, Education policy, ESSA, K-12, Reading & Writing, Sandra Stotsky, Testing/Assessment
Tagged ACT, college admission, common core, ESEA, ESSA, federal government, PARCC, SAT, SBAC
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Fordham report predictable, conflicted
On November 17, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) will decide the fate of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) and the Partnership for Assessment of College Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) in the Bay State. … Continue reading
Brief sketch of the problem…
In the United States, we pay attention to and celebrate the work of HS athletes. We carefully ignore the exemplary academic work of diligent HS scholars–the results follow as you might expect—we get what we want. Will Fitzhugh ——————————— HIGH … Continue reading
On Writing
“First, we stopped demanding that students read anything very challenging in school, and then we stopped holding our teachers or students accountable for the quality of student writing.” On Writing National Center on Education and the Economy By Marc Tucker … Continue reading
WHEELBARROW
“Wheelbarrow” 13 December 2013 There is an old story about a worker, at one of the South African diamond mines, who would leave work once a week or so pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand. The guard would stop him … Continue reading
Posted in College prep, K-12, Reading & Writing, Will Fitzhugh
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Driven to Distraction
DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION Will Fitzhugh The Concord Review 7 February 2013 “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”—George Orwell While we spend … Continue reading
Posted in K-12, Reading & Writing, Will Fitzhugh
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