Test-prep debate
Craig Jerald’s comments on test-prep sparked Matt Yglesias’s discussion and a debate about test prep, and then Jerald’s follow-up. I don’t think there’s that much disagreement about the facts: some schools respond to test pressures in inappropriate ways by narrowing the curriculum or engaging in instruction that they’d stop (and often do) right after testing. […]
Manichean views of motivation in school politics
Joe Williams’s column in the Daily News Saturday, Johnny got a raw deal, will have a tone very familiar to readers of his book, Cheating our Kids (2005): Mayor Bloomberg and Randi Weingarten flashed smiles this week after an unprecedented early contract deal between the city and the 80,000-strong teachers union she leads. Her smiles […]
No one knows how to turn around a school
Eduwonk today writes the following: Everyone likes to say that we know what works, money, class size, choice, private management, etc…but that’s BS. “Turn-arounds” are complicated and hit or miss and that’s not all that surprising, it’s a human endeavor. No argument here on that point. I have three concerns of various urgency about schooling: […]
The election and Florida education policy
Now that I’ve written about the national elections and K-12 and higher-ed policy, it’s time to turn my attention to the states. I know my own state best, so I’ll start there. Jeb Bush will be leaving office, and there is no chance that Charlie Crist will keep Bush’s focus on high-stakes accountability. Much of […]
English professors and the biological trope
By Sherman Dorn on November 12, 2006
Is there something in the air this month that compels English professors to seek metaphors in the natural world when describing their discipline? Miriam Burstein calls the squinting modifier a rara avis, and Margaret Soltan says she is looking forward to seeing a movie with an English-professor main character to examine the latest representative of […]
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