By John Thompson. Anya Kamenetz’s The Test comes from the conversation she’s had again and again with parents. She and they have “seen how high-stakes standardized tests are stunting children’s spirits, adding stress to family life, demoralizing teachers, undermining schools, paralyzing the education …
By John Thompson. Yong Zhao’s Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? is a wake-up call. Zhao warns of a “rising tide of authoritarianism” which test-driven reformers have released on American education. He explains how “high-stakes testing is America’s Faustian bargain.” It risks our greatest democratic …
By John Thompson. For a generation or more, school reform has been driven by the faith that better teaching can drive transformative and sustainable improvement of schools. I have no doubt that this hypothesis has potential for improving low-poverty schools, but the contemporary reform movement has placed a risky …
By John Thompson It was with trepidation that I approached A Path Appears, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I would never try to match my narrow expertise in my field, inner city education, with Kristof’s and WuDunn’s comprehensive expertise on global problems. My students and I shared many wonderful …
By John Thompson. Anthony Cody’s The Educator and the Oligarch recalls his 2012 debate with representatives of the Gates Foundation. He summarized the work of education scholar Linda Darling-Hammond, mathematician John Ewing, and the American Statistical Association when explaining why value-added models …
By Anthony Cody. It has been a bit of a challenge this past decade to maintain a spirit of hope in the face of the immense concentration of wealth and power we have seen. I do not need to remind you of the details – we all know the big picture. But I have, for the past four years or so, been focused on the role …
By Anthony Cody. For progress to occur in China – or the US, the dragons of educational authoritarianism must be slain. Chinese-American professor Yong Zhao has been a bit of a contrarian regarding education reform in the United States. He comes at the subject with a unique perspective. He experienced the …
