Test overkill?
One parent’s experience with schooling in a test-heavy, No Child Left Behind environment: “Then third grade–an absolute disaster. Worksheet after worksheet after worksheet. My smart little boy was...
View ArticleCutting to the bone
Public school teachers in Buffalo, NY do their part to balance the budget by agreeing to forego state-financed plastic surgery, which totaled $9 million last year. It’s nice to see everyone making...
View ArticleArticle 7
Washington Monthly lambastes university “dropout factories:” “This sort of indifference sets the stage for dismal institutions like Chicago State to prey on underserved communities, not just for years...
View ArticleSchool spending
It is nice to see teachers dedicated enough to spend their own money on school supplies, with which this home-schooler can empathize, though I have the added indignity of paying property taxes for...
View ArticleTarnishing educators
How fitting. I get so busy for a couple of days and nights that I don’t have time to post, and then the first news item I come to is this Education Week piece about New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s...
View ArticleOutsourced
If what college students are reading doesn’t depress you, perhaps hearing from the person who’s writing their term papers will: “You’ve never heard of me, but there’s a good chance that you’ve read...
View ArticlePay for performance, not pedigree
It’s nice to see both the U.S. Secretary of Education and billionaire Bill Gates call attention to the insanity of rewarding teachers for getting master’s degrees (at a cost of $300 million per year in...
View ArticleTomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll love ya, tomorrow
Persistently underperforming schools are unlikely to change, a new study finds, or to get shut down. Which means we’ve found yet another way to throw even more money at the problem without...
View ArticleExpert Offense
Some of you may like my latest Image post, even though (or maybe because) it ranges from E.O. Wilson to homosexuality to Michael Polanyi to engineers to literature to the Dewey Decimal System to...
View ArticleThe cowardice of the Chronicle
So The Chronicle of Higher Education has seen fit to fire Naomi Schaefer Riley for criticizing the state of what passes for “Black Studies” in American universities. There’s no need to break that down...
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