Posts in Category Standards and Evaluation

Wastes of Time in Education: Do I Need an Accreditation Attitude Adjustment?

What does the phrase “waste of time” mean to you?  To me, it is when I spend time doing something that seems to serve no majorly useful purpose.  The “seems to” is a subjective qualifier here - what one person views as a waste of time may not beseen as such by others.  For example, spending time reading for leisure might be viewed by some as a waste of time (or a time killer), but to me, it wouldn’t be a waste of time because it serves the purpose of helping me relax or unwind.  However, doing paperwork that never is substantially used for anything would be, in my mind, a waste of time.  Why am I thinking about wastes of time and paperwork?  Because I am involved in my college’s NCATE...

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Posted on Sep 22, 2011 - 10:26 AM by Kristan Morrison

Paradoxes of Our Work

The ability to hold two conflicting truths simultaneously isn't easy. And that's exactly what our work in education calls us to do at this moment.

I am just returning from the AERO and Holistic Education conferences, where I saw COOPsters David Loitz, Casey Caronna, Paul Freedman and Jen Groves. (Oh yeah!) One evening at AERO, a group gathered to talk about what IDEA has been learning over the past year. This prompted a reflection on my work as an educational activist and teacher over the past 15 years, and the paradoxes I hold in my work, as both a radical school critic, and a persistent hope monger in education.

As most of us here at the COOP already feel, we are at a moment of...

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Posted on Aug 10, 2011 - 12:57 PM by Kirsten Olson

Is Testing and Quizzing Good for Learning?

According to a blog posted in the education section of the online magazine, Good, Kent University conducted a study which, scientists claim, has shown that practice tests and practice quizzes are good for learning. It's a short blog, and if you've got time, I suggest reading that before you read the rest of this blog. Just click here.

Basically, the study conducted an experiment between two groups of people preparing for a Swahili vocabulary test. One group studied for the test by whatever methods they chose, and the other group took a pop-quiz prior to the actual test, and were given a list of English words which correlated to the Swahili words in some fashion (by meaning or phonetically)...

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Posted on Oct 15, 2010 - 11:02 AM by Shawn Strader

New assessments - are they better?

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...

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Posted on Sep 03, 2010 - 05:44 AM by Dana Bennis

Race To The Top

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...

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Posted on Aug 16, 2010 - 12:41 PM by Shawn Strader

The Education Policy Debate

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...

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Posted on Jun 07, 2010 - 07:26 AM by Dana Bennis

7 Skills Schools Should Be Teaching Kids

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’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’s future. What I discovered in this journey may come as a surprise to many.

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Posted on May 28, 2010 - 12:15 AM by Sara Schmidt

UK Teachers Take a Stand

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.

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Posted on May 14, 2010 - 12:03 PM by Scott Nine

Why Do Finland’s Schools Get the Best Results?

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.’’

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Posted on May 04, 2010 - 01:57 AM by Sara Schmidt

Standardized Tests “Deny Children a Well-Rounded Education”

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.

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Posted on Apr 07, 2010 - 05:05 AM by Sara Schmidt