Michael O’Malley’s take on Virginia history textbook errors
The SOLs are the problem. They combine the huffing and blowing of conservatives, who want measurable fact-based standards, with the wheedling of liberals, who want “inclusion.” The result trains kids away from argument and reason and towards empty memorization. via Those VA History textbooks – The Aporetic. Bad standards aren’t the entire problem, but incoherent […]
Cillizza channels Vizzini
Sometimes you gotta laugh to avoid crying at the ignorance of the punditocracy. In the 1990s, mostly-GOP consultant Dick Morris advised President Clinton to triangulate, which we learned meant moving to the center and thereby hoping to steal your opponents' rhetorical thunder. Here comes Chris Cillizza, either redefining or misunderstanding the term: Former Massachusetts Gov. […]
Is Jeb Bush stuck in fourth grade?
The title above is a bit flippant, but since Jeb Bush's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday focused (again) on fourth-grade achievement data in reading, it's important to keep in mind that there are students in other grades, too. Florida's fourth-grade reading NAEP data is where you see the strongest evidence on the Florida […]
Four fading fads and four future fetishes, 2011 version
Belated happy New Year! In the spirit of renewal, here is some clearing out of old cobwebs and identification of likely new ones. Fading and (briefly) the reason why I have some hope on these fronts:
Dan Goldhaber’s odd reasoning
… much of the debate about using value-added for teacher evaluation is framed around the potential consequences for teachers rather than focusing on the known or potential consequences for students. Dan Goldhaber, The Standard of Evidence for Change, [guest column in] Rick Hess Straight Up. Goldhaber's a smart man, which is why this tangential argument puzzles […]