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 Anthony Cody. (Originally posted here, July 23, 2012. This essay is also included in my book, The Educator and the Oligarch, a Teacher Challenges the Gates Foundation.) In the summer of 2012 I traveled to Seattle and spent most of the day meeting with leaders of the Gates Foundation, discussing their work …
By Michelle Strater Gunderson. I recently had an epiphany while listening to Melissa Katz, a wonderful student activist from New Jersey, talk about corporate education reform on the radio. When speaking about the swift and drastic changes in education based on implementation of Common Core and aligned tests she …
By Vincent Marsala. Many people think that applying business principles and making educators compete via stack ranking and merit pay will make education better. Even former National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said it might work, “The first thing you have to decide on is what you …
By John Kuhn. With the debate over testing roiling Congress and state capitals nationwide, it is important to recognize the damage done to American pedagogy by high-stakes testing and the deleterious effects of punitive accountability on the students who depend on public schools. In The Big Idea of School …
By Darcy Bedortha. On Thursday, February 26th I had the privilege of joining a conference call regarding the release of a report sponsored by In The Public Interest, documenting the performance of the K12 Inc. subsidiary California Virtual Academy. This was of interest to me because, even after more than a year …
By Michelle Strater Gunderson. “What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.” John Dewey Last week the Local School Council at Nettelhorst Elementary School in Chicago …
By Anthony Cody. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker made headlines recently when he tried to change the mission of the state university system there, removing the “search for truth.” In its place, the university’s mission was changed to “meet the state’s workforce needs.” This blatant attack …
In 2013, I shared a post written by a New York City elementary teacher, entitled “Data Shows Not Enough Teaching.” She is back today with an update, and although there has been a change in administration in New York City, testing at her school is excessive as ever. By Katie Lapham. While the public in New York …
