Ohio: Exit exam will test college readiness
Ohio will replace its high-school graduation test with a tougher college-readiness exam and end-of-course tests, reports the Columbus Dispatch. The current graduation test asks for 10th-grade skills....
View ArticleAlgebra 1 for all — but it’s not always algebra
Nearly all high graduates in the class of ’05 passed Algebra I — or a course labeled Algebra I, concludes a new federal study. But fewer than one in four studied the challenging algebra topics needed...
View ArticleCore math adds coherence, rigor, focus
Common Core’s new math standards “have the potential to improve average student achievement” by adding focus, rigor and coherence, predict William H. Schmidt and Nathan A. Burroughs in the new...
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The bigotry of low (teacher) expectations
Common Core Standards didn’t invent effective teaching, writes Julie Greenberg in The bigotry of low (teacher) expectations in the National Council on Teacher Quality’s blog. She objects to step 5 in...
View ArticleConservatives can like the Common Core
Conservatives should support the Common Core standards, write Kathleen Porter-Magee and Sol Stern, who describe themselves as “education scholars at two right-of-center think tanks” (Fordham and the...
View ArticleTougher tests spur anxiety, opt-outs
New York’s new Common Core-aligned tests are bringing “protests and tears,” reports the New York Times. Complaints were plentiful: the tests were too long; students were demoralized to the point of...
View ArticleAfter 30 years, still at risk?
Thirty years ago, the Nation At Risk report warned that “a rising tide of mediocrity” -- low educational standards — “threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” High schools pushed students...
View ArticleA stupid way to pick ‘gifted’ students
Our system for identifying “gifted” students isn’t very smart, writes Andrew Rotherham in The Illusion of the ‘Gifted’ Child in Time. New Yorkers were outraged to learn that “behemoth education company...
View ArticleBritain looks East for better schools
Longer school days and shorter holidays would help British students catch up with Asian students, Education Secretary Michael Gove said at an education conference in London. “If you look at the length...
View ArticleThe AP/IB challenge gap
Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses could help close the “high-end achievement gap” — if more low-income, black and Latino students take these rigorous courses,...
View ArticleCommon tests lose support
Forty-five states and the District of Columbia are moving forward on Common Core Standards, but support for common testing is eroding, reports StateImpact. Georgia will use its own exam, instead of the...
View ArticleCritics hit remedial ed reforms
States are trying to prevent, accelerate or limit remedial education to boost graduation rates. But some say remedial reforms will doom many college students to failure. Instructors are trying to...
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Where schoolwork is hard, kids get ‘smart’
For all those who loathed psychologist Peter Gray’s argument for self-directed learning in School is bad for kids, here’s cognitive scientist Dan Willingham’s paean to rigorous curriculum and hard...
View ArticleNY raises bar for future teachers, principals
Would-be teachers will need a 3.0 grade point average and higher test scores for admission to teacher education at the State University of New York. Standards also will be raised for prospective...
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SAT: 43% are college ready
Forty-three percent of SAT takers were prepared for college-level work, according to this year’s SAT Report on College & Career Readiness. Overall, scores were the same, but black and Hispanic...
View ArticleBetter than Shanghai
“While U.S. schools struggled to reach even an average score on a key international exam for 15-year-olds in 2012, BASIS Tucson North, an economically modest, ethnically diverse charter school in...
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Catholic scholars oppose Common Core
More than 100 Catholic scholars have signed a letter to the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops urging church leaders to reject Common Core Standards for Catholic schools, reports Education Week. Gerard V....
View ArticleDuncan disses ‘white suburban moms’
Why the resistance to Common Core standards? “White suburban moms are learning “their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were,”...
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Coddled kids vs. high standards
Common Core’s critics — “right-wing alarmists” and “left-wing paranoiacs” — have been joined by parents who think higher standards are too stressful, writes New York Times columnist Frank Bruni. Are...
View ArticleTake this test, please
Take This Test (Please), writes John Merrow on Taking Note. He lists five test questions that “may explain why American students score lower than their counterparts in most other advanced nations.”...
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