Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, August 8, 2013

UPDATE: Jersey Jazzman: New York Test Scores: Reformies Go All In

Jersey Jazzman: New York Test Scores: Reformies Go All In:


Charters That Kick Out Kids Have NOTHING To Teach Real Public Schools
I blogged earlier this month about Montclair, NJ, which has become quite possibly the most important front in the war against spreading reforminess to the Jersey 'burbs. Superintendent Penny MacCormack - a Broad Superintendents Academy Book Club graduate and protege of NJDOE Education Commissioner Chris Cerf - has been pushing to bring the Common Core to this integrated suburb, much to the chagrin


New York Test Scores: Reformies Go All In

The "reform" movement is going all in with yesterday's test score releases in New York State:
Large numbers of New York students failed reading and math exams last school year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers, and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards. 
Across the city, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the state exams in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department. 
The exams were some of the first in the nation to be aligned with a more rigorous set of standards known as Common Core, which emphasize deep analysis and creative problem-solving. 

City and state officials spent months trying to steel the public for the grim figures, saying that a decline in scores was inevitable and that it would take several years before students performed at high levels. Under the old exams