The Washington Post reports that up to 350 million dollars may be available to help states work on national standards.
No doubt this will be followed by billions later for national testing, voluntary of course. Unless your state happens to be taking any federal money in which case…..
Entries from June 26th, 2009
350 Million to help states create national standards
June 26th, 2009 4 Comments
Tags: national standards · national testing
Schools that cheat
June 25th, 2009 8 Comments
You knew it would come to this, human nature being so often what it is. Schools accused of cheating. Schools accused of pushing the envelope on the ethics of testing and test administration. Of course schools don’t cheat, people cheat.
Here is an article about a principal who has resigned amidst accusations of test improprieties.
As the [...]
Tags: administrators · cheating · school testing · teachers · test ethics
Study says two-thirds of charter schools are inferior
June 23rd, 2009 1 Comment
Stanfod University has conducted a study that says two out of three charter schools offer an inferior education to traditional public schools.
“Despite promising results in a number of states and within certain subgroups, the overall findings of this report indicate a disturbing — and far-reaching — subset of poorly performing charter schools,” the report says.
Here [...]
Tags: charter schools
The problem with school choice
June 17th, 2009 3 Comments
Advocates for school choice believe that competition among schools will raise the quality of education in general as parents make consumer minded school selections. This would force schools to become more accountable as parents vote with their feet much the way competition in private enterprise works.
Daniel Willingham says, “not so fast.” He points out that [...]
Tags: parental choice · school choice
Staffing and personnel
June 16th, 2009 2 Comments
Wander over to The Stock Mark Report where I ponder the question whether teacher quality is more important than teacher quantity.
Teaching has become such difficult and stressful work that schools are throwing personnel at every problem that comes along. The problem is that having more people available doesn’t always translate to better student learning.
Has anyone [...]
Tags: hiring · personnel · special education · staffing
Pondering the future of online education
June 13th, 2009 No Comments
Lately I have been pondering the future of online education. At the University of Wyoming where I serve as Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership working with graduate students in the Master’s and Doctorate programs, we do most of our courses in a hybrid format. This means a typical 3 credit hour course will consist of [...]
Tags: cyber school · internet · online courses · online instruction
NCLB opinions
June 9th, 2009 No Comments
Some of you folks may remember the late, great Lowell Rose. Lowell was at Indiana University for years and helped with the Gallup Polls on education and Phi Delta Kappan. He was well respected around the country and a very ardent supporter of public education.
Here is a great op ed piece criticizing NCLB in the [...]
Tags: Indianapolis star · Lowell Rose · NCLB · Politics · public education
Are schools creative places?
June 7th, 2009 5 Comments
Many educators were successful enough in school by providing the “right answer” and being reasonably obedient. Then they become teachers and teach students to do the same.
Nothing wrong with that…but some are beginning to question whether or not schools are fostering creativity. I blogged about it several times.
In Leader Talk this week Dennis Richards has [...]
What do you think of National Standards?
June 5th, 2009 5 Comments
The big education news this week is that there are 46 states that have agreed to setting national standards in education. Washington Post article here.
Is this a good idea?
I didn’t use to think so.
Then I got tired of constant fussing and arguing over state standards and thought of the ineffectiveness of all 50 states constantly revising their [...]
Tags: accountability · education standards · national standards
