Test Season Reveals America’s Biggest Failures
It’s testing season in America, and regardless of how the students do, it’s clear who is already flunking the exams. Last week in New York, new standardized tests began rolling out across the state, and tens of thousands of families said “no dice.” According to local news sources, over 33,000 students skipped the tests – [...]
Time For A ‘Fair Shot’ Agenda For Education
“Democrats Scramble to Stave Off Midterm Disaster” was the headline in The New York Times article this week reporting on “the problem” the party has with turning out its base in the upcoming midterm election. As the reporter explained, “Young voters have abandoned the midterm electorate at more than twice the rate of seniors. Hispanics, [...]
How ‘Education Reform’ Perpetuates Racial Disparity
America was shocked, shocked, by new data from the U.S. Department of Education last week showing that a child’s education destiny in the nation’s public schools is strongly determined by race. As a report in The New York Times put it, the new data revealed that “racial minorities are more likely than white students to [...]
New Extremists In The Education Debate
For people who like to think of themselves as being “exceptional,” Americans can sometimes abandon the very principles their exceptionality is founded on. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current debate of education policy. A feature that has long made America’s public school system exceptional for sure is its governance through democratically elected [...]
Mayor De Blasio Has It Right On Charter Schools
It was Monday morning, and the folks at Morning Joe were already steamed. Joe Scarborough had his Very Serious scowl face on while Mika Brzezinski’s eyes were flashing with poised rage. Their target: newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who had arrived for the ritual grilling now so popular on broadcast television. [...]
Options In The Standoff Over Test-Based Education Policy
What happens when people feel they aren’t being listened to? They raise their voices louder. For some time now, teachers, parents, and students have spoken out against the extraordinary emphasis on standardized testing that has become the bedrock of the nation’s education policies. Critics have questioned the whole idea that teaching and learning is a [...]
Education Spring ‘Year Of Action’ Revs Up
When President Barak Obama, in his State of the Union address, called for a “year of action,” he probably didn’t have this in mind. An extensive and diverse coalition of forces opposed to the education policies pushed by his administration, and many state governors, is organizing on an unprecedented scale to spur a variety of [...
