Category Results
Posted on Sep 03, 2010 - 08:44 AM by Dana Bennis in The Landscape
Secretary Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education announced the awarding of $330 million yesterday to two consortia of states under the Race to the Top Assessment program for their proposals to create a new generation of assessments. This is on top of the $4 billion announced in the past months to the state-wide Race to the Top competition. The Department of Education framed the contest as one that would create assessments that help "prepare students for college and the workplace, that more validly measure student knowledge and skills, that better reflect good instructional practices, and that support a culture of continuous improvement in education." The plan is for the assessments... Race To The TopPosted on Aug 16, 2010 - 03:41 PM by Shawn Strader in Op-Education
I do not mean for this writing to provide a summary, synopsis, or full blown analysis of our nations most recent plan to stimulate the effectiveness of our education system, Race To The Top (RTTT). Rather I will offer some thoughts and concerns in hopes to stimulate the thoughts of readers in regards to RTTT, and provoke independent research and analysis of the effort. For an accurate description of RTTT, visit the US Department of Education website here.In a nutshell, RTTT is the United States' most recent federal program to stimulate teachers, schools, and mainly statewide education officials and governors into practicing more effective teaching standards by offering monetary awards for... The Education Policy Debate
Posted on Jun 07, 2010 - 10:26 AM by Dana Bennis in The Landscape
I enjoy reading columns by David Brooks in The New York Times. He's a moderate conservative who promotes a more compassionate, intellectual, and pragmatic form of conservatism than what is often found in politics and the media. Nonetheless, I often disagree with him, and his recent op-ed on education deserves a critical response.He begins by praising Obama's direction on education, saying that Obama is using "federal power to incite reform, without dictating it from the top." Yet Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Race to the Top program is rewarding $4.5 billion to a limited number of states who receive the most points based on a scoring rubric (PDF) the administration... 7 Skills Schools Should Be Teaching Kids
Posted on May 28, 2010 - 03:15 AM by Sara Schmidt in News Feed
I began with several questions: First, in the new global economy, where any job that can be turned into a routine is being either automated or “off-shored,” what skills will our students need to get"and keep•€“a good job. And what skills are needed for citizenship today? Are these education goals in conflict, I wondered.
With a clearer picture of the skills young people will need, I then set out to learn to what extent we are teaching and testing the skills that matter most. And because we already know that many of our nation(tm)s urban schools are failing, I chose to observe classrooms in some of our most highly regarded suburban schools in order to understand whether our • best” was, in fact, good enough for our children(tm)s future. What I discovered in this journey may come as a surprise to many.
UK Teachers Take a StandPosted on May 14, 2010 - 03:03 PM by Scott Nine in The Landscape
My first response to news that thousands (yes thousands!) of elementary school teachers in the UK will boycott giving their students standardized tests and instead take them on outings or write creative stories is, "It is about time!"I've long thought that teachers have the most collective power to bring about change if they acted simultaneously to challenge norm referenced tests that rank young kids and mechanize the art of teaching and learning.
The full article can be found UK teachers boycott tests. Why Do Finland’s Schools Get the Best Results?
Posted on May 04, 2010 - 04:57 AM by Sara Schmidt in News Feed
The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.
A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.
Finland’s Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country’s record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.
‘‘The Finnish system supports very much those pupils who have learning difficulties but we have to pay more attention also to those pupils who are very talented. Now we have started a pilot project about how to support those pupils who are very gifted in certain areas.’’
Standardized Tests “Deny Children a Well-Rounded Education”Posted on Apr 07, 2010 - 08:05 AM by Sara Schmidt in News Feed
Ministers are stripping primary school children of their basic human right to a well-rounded education, a teachers’ leader warned today.
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said national tests for 10- and 11-year-olds, formerly known as Sats, contravene the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Under the Convention, which Britain signed in 1991, children are entitled to a broad education which develops their “personalities, talents and abilities to their fullest potential.”
Blower told the NUT annual conference in Liverpool that Sats only gave children the right to pass exams, not the right “to be educated in the round.” They reduced children to “little bundles of measurable outputs trained in a mechanistic model of education,” she said, repeating words used last month by the children’s commissioner, Maggie Atkinson.
Education Between NationsPosted on Mar 17, 2010 - 06:50 PM by Sara Schmidt in Uncharted Parenting
One of the things that really made me want to make sure my daughter's education was different from my own was the view of another nation's school system I had a chance to experience during college. During my sophomore year, I was able to participate in a teaching internship in Spain for at-risk children; I consider it one of the best learning experiences of my life yet.I am hesitant to discuss actual school policies, rules, curricula, etc. since I only speak moderate Spanish and did not get to take part in every classroom or the full lowdown on the school's policies; in fact, I only spent a few days within regular classrooms. Some of this appalled me--particularly the disdain I... Obama’s Education Disconnect
Posted on Feb 02, 2010 - 01:22 PM by Dana Bennis in The Landscape
The Obama administration is ramping up its focus on education following last week's State of the Union. Unfortunately, it does not seem to go very far in taking a broader look at learning and giving teachers and young people more of a voice in the education process. Positive proposals include expanding the system of rating schools to include more than just test scores and using a student growth-based metric rather than a static grade comparison across schools. However, there is still no talk about more authentic forms of assessment or supporting student growth beyond academics, and the Race to the Top initiative, which guides additional education spending, remains focused on linking... Test StressPosted on Jan 20, 2010 - 10:05 PM by Alison Bagg Brink in ImprovEducation
EEEK! Finals!
Finals…I type ‘em, they take ‘em. They stress, I correct.
No, it is much more than that. I sit down and try to create a test that is fair and relevant. I pull from the most important Spanish grammar concepts, the most used (or useful) vocabulary I have taught, and the most interesting stories we have read, and create questions that get to the heart of the matter.
I am required by my school to provide a culminating task that is relevant to the class. I am required by my department to provide a written test. I have nearly two hundred students. To maintain any sanity at all, I give a multiple guess final. Oh, make that multiple choice…
Supposedly, if students do well on...
Reverse Pressure: The Pressure to FailPosted on Jan 10, 2010 - 05:20 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
In schools across America, young teens walk their halls with the heavy burden of perfection always upon them. Whoever instills this need for being flawless is often the one pushing young people. Their parents, their teachers, their family. However, at my school there is a new kind of pressure that is exceedingly different from the classic one: The pressure to fail.Meeting the status quo. That's what it's all about. Don't do too well, don't stand out. Kids use the term “rebel” fairly often in my school. In dictionary terms, this means someone or a group of people who rise up against the government. In my school, it's someone who fails. Someone who steals. Someone who is not in a good place... Don’t Call it a Comeback
Posted on Dec 21, 2009 - 10:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve
I've been gone a while--I know. But such is the nature of democratic education. Let me explain.If you've read my previous entries, I hope it was clear that I had a vision for my classroom and I was going to strive to make this vision a reality. The path had been set and the last time we communicated, I believed that I needed to condition my students to be unconditionable. I quoted Audre Lorde and questioned her belief that we could not use the master's tools to dismantle the master's home.
So several weeks later and after lots of reflecting, I'm totally retracting my statements. As adamant as I was that my students needed to be conditioned through the use of grades and external... Bullied by a Role Model
Posted on Dec 20, 2009 - 05:00 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
I write today from my heart, which, like my head is very confused and upset. I have been at my new school for nearly three months and I am happy to report I have not once been bullied, or teased -- until today. We all went through getting teased when we were children, and I have to admit I even did my fair share of teasing when I was young too, but it's an easy thing to fix. When you're teased as a child, you run to your teacher for comfort and advice. The scary thing is, this time the bully was my teacher.It was the end of the day and I was walking with my friend to basketball practice. My teacher stood in the hall. I called to him, "So, did I get an A on that assignment?" in a joking... Homeschoolers Anonymous
Posted on Dec 11, 2009 - 02:31 AM by Sara Schmidt in Uncharted Parenting
My name is Sara, and I'm a former homeschool basher.I never encountered any homeschooled kids until I went to college. Having excelled in school for the most part, I met the very idea of being taught at home with disdain. Most of the homeschooled students I met were nice, happy, pretty well-adjusted--and very, very religious. I immediately jumped onto the bandwagon driven by the people chanting, "Brainwash!" and decided that people who homeschooled their children were simply training them to be members of the Army of God, that it was such a travesty, and that the drones produced from such mind-numbing instruction would only go off into the wild blue yonder, birthing more drones to keep... Is Education Meant to Be Easy? And other ruminations on required assignments
Posted on Dec 04, 2009 - 01:51 PM by Kristan Morrison in democracy.edu
The semester is winding down for my teacher education students and me. We are all filled with that sense of anticipation that comes when you see hard work reaching an end. It is at this time each semester that I start gathering my thoughts about changes I want to make to my courses for the new semester, and it is at this time when I ask my students to give me advice and feedback on how things went for them in my class. Inevitably, the conversation comes around to the reading responses -- the weekly written assignments where students give evidence of having read and processed the assigned texts.Each week, I give students anywhere from 25 to 50 pages to read for class and I ask them to... The Building Blocks of a Good Education
Posted on Nov 18, 2009 - 02:02 PM by Jonah Canner in Got Questions?
This week I'll be asking the question. Here it is:What ever happened to Kindergarten?
This past weekend I found myself in Western Massachusetts for an old fashioned Timber House Raising. Now I have to be honest, before this weekend I had no idea what a Timber Hose Raising was. Living in Brooklyn it's not so often you come across someone who decides they're going to build their house and then invites the whole neighborhood over to help. It's even less often that you get to watch a house being build with no metal. But that was exactly what happened. Over the last two years pieces of tree were cut, shaved and carved into lumber, each piece measured and chiseled to fit exactly into the... Got goals?
Posted on Nov 18, 2009 - 10:57 AM by Alison Bagg Brink in ImprovEducation
This is my thirteenth fall as a teacher. This year has been wonderful so far. I have great students, colleagues that I respect, and a curriculum for the majority of my classes that I agree with philosophically.But then ... (think the soundtrack to Jaws) it is time to set professional goals. There is nothing in the year that brings more discomfort than the goal-related meetings, and we have at least three each year. These meetings make me sweat and give me a horrible pain between my right shoulder and my neck, in fact, I am trying to stretch it out as I type.
Here is the issue: my goal needs to be in alignment with the school and district goals. In a nutshell, that means that my goal... Skinner Box to Freedom
Posted on Nov 17, 2009 - 08:44 PM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve
So, there I stood. In front of my thirty 9th graders, hour after hour, watching them write letters to each other, put their gum under their desks, talk to their neighbors while the assigned worksheet on the parts of speech I just spent the night before diligently creating fell silently to the floor. Think I am being melodramatic? I wish! In one class, I laughed to myself for a solid thirty seconds (a long time in high school time), after I spent three minutes going back and forth with a student as to why throwing wads of paper at a girl he did not like was unacceptable."Stop doing that and apologize."
"What? She doesn't care."
"She's not going to tell you she cares, but I do.... From Student to Conformist
Posted on Nov 06, 2009 - 09:58 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
Hi, my name is Claire Russell. I am a freshman at a mainstream public high school in rural Maine. I attended a "Waldorf-inspired" alternative school from the moment I walked into my first day of kindergarten, until the day I graduated from eighth grade last June.I loved school. Every minute of it. There wasn't a day when I thought it was a drag to go to school. It was perfect for me. We learned to learn. My teachers taught to teach. We weren't tested, graded or analyzed. I had a second family of twenty-four kids my age and a teacher who probably knew me better than I knew myself at most times. The thought of leaving broke my heart a little every time I thought about graduation. It seemed...