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 Anthony Cody. We have been badgered for the past 14 years by reformers insisting on the fierce urgency of change, and they have had their way – twice! First, seven years of NCLB, followed by the past seven years of Race to the Top, and now the “next generation” of tests, which were promised to be …
By Anthony Cody. We have been seeing the fallout from heavy handed monitoring and enforcement that is coming to us with the new Common Core tests. As I pointed out Sunday, this sort of security is made necessary when you have created a system where heavy consequences are attached to success on these tests. …
By Anthony Cody. Pearson employees may be off for the weekend but when they get to work tomorrow they will find they have a big mess to deal with. The news broke on Friday that Pearson has been monitoring student social media, and has worked with District officials in several instances to ferret out and reprimand …
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 …
Leonie Haimson, founder of Class Size Matters and champion of student rights, speaks at Occupy the Department of Education in 2013. Read about her recent work here.
By Michelle Gunderson. We have a saying in the testing resistance movement – don’t feed the beast, starve the data monster. When parents opt their children out of testing they are taking a strong stance against having their children’s data used as a mechanism to sort students, punish teachers, and privatize …
by Michelle Gunderson. Imagine you are 8 years old. Your parents respectfully requested that you not participate in standardized testing. Yet, your school system insists on putting the test in front of you, reading the directions, and making you sit quietly for the duration of the test. Now that over a thousand …
A high school teacher asks us to consider the techrights and human rights of the underage human subjects of business-imposed edtech experiments and “innovations”, and to reflect on Audrey Watters’ column, Ed-Tech and the Templated Self: Thoughts from the “Reclaim Your Domain” Hackathon. by Mary …
