By Anthony Cody (and Anonymous). I received the following message from a reader this morning. With his permission, I am sharing it here, followed by my own thoughts: I just applied to Downey Unified School District in Southern California and was referred to the Teachermatch website to take the “EPI” …
By Michelle Strater Gunderson. I worked the work of three people this week. I do not say this to be congratulated or slapped on the back. I have never been one of those people who brag about being tired because I do too much. I say this because it is true. This past week the students at my school were taking the …
By Denise Hertzog Pursche. In my prior post about “Why High School Exit Exams, Not Student, Are Worthless”, I talked about my own experience as a foster child and how the high school exit exam made an impact on my life. Then in Part Two, I discuss the findings and research about high school exit exams and why …
By Anthony Cody. The rise of Competency Based Education as a supposed alternative to schooling driven by standardized tests is prompting an interesting debate. I first wrote about CBE last November, in response to a version offered by tech-ed entrepreneur Tom Vander Ark. My primary concern was that teacher and …
By Denise Hertzog Pursche. In Part 1 of Why High School Exit Exams, Not Students, Are Worthless, I talked about my personal experience taking and failing the high school exit exam and what impact that had on my life. Every percentage point denied a diploma represents many, many people – people like me. There’s …
A controversy is brewing in California schools. Last year, Governor Brown signed legislation that not only eliminates the state’s high school exit exam, but also retroactively awards diplomas to the 32,000 students who failed to receive them due to not passing the exam. The following post is written by a former …
By John Thompson. Even as I tried to distance myself from the computer over the holiday season, edu-politics kept drawing me back. Since my book, A Teacher’s Tale, has been released, I reread the manuscript’s my first draft. Mostly, I did so to revisit the stories of students that were edited out, but I …
By John Thompson. The Education Post’s Peter Cunningham sent out a mass email saying, Meanwhile, Chalkbeat Tennessee explores the ‘healthy tension between accountability and instructional freedom’ triggered by Duncan’s signature reform program, Race to the Top, and asks if the policies will …
By Anthony Cody. With her ill-informed remarks on school closures, Hillary Clinton set off a bit of a firestorm among education activists. Her full remarks have been posted by Valerie Strauss, so there is no question what she said, and as Peter Greene points out, context does not help much. She clearly thinks …
By Educators for Shared Responsibility. In 2012, concerned that accountability for US student outcomes was being unfairly characterized as the sole responsibility of classroom teachers, a group called Educators for Shared Accountability emerged from the classrooms of the heartland and made a bold statement with a …
