Education Reform – Page 5 – Embrace the Absurd

MCAS 2001 – Hindsight is 220

Last week, with relatively little fanfare, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to “raise MCAS graduation requirements” beginning with the Class of 2026 (i.e., students beginning high school this fall). Although the approved requirements do have the effect of “raising” the test-based graduation requirements as reported, what they actually do is alignContinue reading “MCAS 2001 – Hindsight is 220”

Public Schools – In Need of Serious Change

Back To School season is here! It’s one of the few special times of the year that marketers cannot overextend, although they have tried. We accept Halloween candy appearing in the aisles as soon as Christmas in July ends and non-stop Christmas movies and music beginning the week before Halloween, but nobody wants to seeContinue reading “Public Schools – In Need of Serious Change”

Bye-bye Miss American Pie

And the three men I admire most The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died Will historians and songwriters look back on July 14, 2022 as the day that standards-based Education Reform died? And is this how it ends, not with the bangContinue reading “Bye-bye Miss American Pie”

10,000 Hours

The so-called “Ten-Thousand Hour Rule” became popularized after the 2008 publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. By popularized, of course, I mean that the discussion of the relationship between success and 10,000 hours of preparation presented by Gladwell was simplified and bastardized so that it could be deliberately misapplied when presented toContinue reading “10,000 Hours”

250,000 Tubas!

Not since 76 trombones led the big parade have a bunch of brass instruments caused this much buzz – or perhaps it would be more fitting to say caused this much oom-pah. For you see, at the core of the Biden-Harris Administration National Effort to Support Student Success is a call to action to provideContinue reading “250,000 Tubas!”

We Swallowed a Fly

State Testing Edition I know of a state that started to test I don’t why they started to test Soon followed by the rest. First, the state tested at 4, 8, and 10 Kids filled in the bubbles and picked up a pen Their essays proved direct writing was best But I don’t why theContinue reading “We Swallowed a Fly”

Are You My Accountability System?

It seems obvious that school accountability is a shared responsibility. As is often the case, however, when everyone is responsible, nobody is accountable.

In The Interim

All signs indicate that we are entering a time of transition for large-scale state testing. Consensus on the need to reform state testing may be surpassed only by widespread agreement on the need to reinvent and reimagine public education in the United States. I hesitate to add the modifier K-12 or P-14 to state testingContinue reading “In The Interim”

Testonyms

In elementary school, first I learned about synonyms and antonyms. Synonym – Same; Antonym – Opposite; Got it. And synonym and antonym are such cool words – “and sometimes y.” It got a little more complicated with homonyms, which might be homophones (pronounced the same, differ in meaning or spelling), homographs (spelled the same, differContinue reading “Testonyms”

Those Crazy, Hazy, Lazy Days of Testing

Lived through those crazy, hazy, lazy days of testing Those days of W, Obama, and peers. Thrived on those crazy, hazy, lazy days of testing We thought state testing would always be here. [Fast forward through 20 years or so with carefree, upbeat verses] [End with one gloomier verse, maintain the upbeat tempo but aContinue reading “Those Crazy, Hazy, Lazy Days of Testing”