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The writing on the (cinderblock) halls
Low-income students see plenty of inspirational messages on the cinderblock walls, writes Education Trust playwright-researcher Brooke Haycock in The Writing on the Hall. They’re told to dream big. But...
View ArticleCommon Core-ification of the SAT
In The Story Behind the SAT Overhaul, College Board president David Coleman tells the New York Times what the exam will look like in a few years. Coleman gave me what he said was a simplistic example...
View Article‘Smarter Balanced’ or badly worded?
Darren and his fellow math teachers took a practice “Smarter Balanced” test to see what problems students will encounter on the Common Core-aligned exam. Many of the 11th-grade math questions “were...
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Today’s students, tomorrow’s jobs
(Academic) college isn’t for everyone, wrote Fordham’s Mike Petrilli in Slate. Some students who are failing in college might succeed if they pursued job training, he argued. It sparked a huge...
View ArticlePARCC test is ‘stupid, impossible’ and ‘weird’
As a big supporter of Common Core standards, literacy consultant Rebecca Steinitz asked her seventh-grade daughter to take a practice test released by the PARCC consortium. It’s a “stupid, impossible...
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Kindergarten show canceled for college prep
Kindergarteners won’t sing or dance for their parents this year at Harley Avenue Primary School in Long Island. The annual kindergarten show was canceled to because it takes time from college and...
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AP for average students
A Pittsburgh high school is “spreading the AP gospel” to average students, not just the high achievers, reports the New York Times. Brashear High, a school with “middling” performance, is collaborating...
View ArticleIn students’ words: Challenge us
When students who transfer from low-performing to high-performing high schools, they realize what they’ve been missing, writes Brooke Haycock in The View From the Lighthouse. It’s not enough for...
View ArticleDo kids need a ‘gap year’ before high school?
Some parents are giving their children an extra year in eighth grade to prepare for the rigors of high school, writes Jessica Lahey, a middle-school teacher, in The Atlantic. The recent push for...
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A 9-year-old faces the Core
Chrispin Alcindor was a star student in the early grades, but he fell way behind in third and fourth grade, reports the New York Times in Common Core, in 9-Year-Old Eyes. Is it the new curriculum’s...
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How hard are Core math problems?
Math teachers in Maryland analyzed a Core-aligned fourth-grade math performance task from PARCC, reports Liana Heitin on Ed Week. Several were surprised at how much it required. Teachers listed what...
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What does this framework mean?
NYC schools chancellor Carmen Fariña has announced a new system for evaluating schools. Instead of grades and rankings, there will be a “school quality snapshot” and a “school quality guide.” These...
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Easy A’s in teacher prep
Education majors earn high grades, but aren’t prepared for the classroom, concludes Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them, a National Council on Teacher Quality report. NCTQ looked at more than 500 colleges...
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Charters draw middle-class families
School-choice politics are changing as more middle-class parents choose charter schools, writes Richard Whitmire in Education Next. Assertive “soccer moms and dads” provide “political heft to the...
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AP for all
Advanced Placement classes used to be reserved for top students. Now, schools are opening AP to nearly everyone, reports Marketplace. That’s challenged students to work harder and aim higher. It’s also...
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Do poor kids need less learning, more play?
Direct instruction denies low-income children a carefree childhood and harms their emotional development, argues Steve Nelson, headmaster of an elite private school in Manhattan, in the Huffington...
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Remediate in high school, not college
Education Realist’s policy proposals start with banning remediation at the college level. My cutoff would be second-year algebra and a lexile score of 1000 (that’s about tenth grade, yes?) for...
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Too much homework for kids, too little for teens
Kindergarten, first- and second-graders are doing too much homework, while high schools students are doing too little, concludes a study of Rhode Island students published by the American Journal of...
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Low-income kids want college, but few are prepared
Ninety-six percent of low-income ACT takers plan to enroll in college, yet only 11 percent are prepared to pass college classes, concludes an ACT analysis. Half the students in the lowest income...
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Core aligned? Not so much
In Checking In, Education Trust asks whether classroom assignments reflect higher Common Core standards. The answer is: “Not so much.” Analysts looked at more than 1,500 assignments given by 92...
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