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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: Reading & Writing
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
Grade 4 Reading – Is NAEP’s standard for proficiency set too high?
There’s been a lot of discussion from some teachers and Ed school professors about how the National Assessment for Educational Progress’ (NAEP) standard for reading proficiency is simply set too high. These naysayers claim this creates a false sense of … 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
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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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