Pennsylvania public schools have jumped on the cheating bandwagon. I’m excited to find out which state will be found out next. And I’m super duper excited to read American History a few decades from now when someone theorizes that President Bush and his No Child Left Behind Act pushed American educators to cheat on standardized tests.

Further Reading:

Atlanta Cheats, Too
Too Many Erasures On D.C. Standardized Tests
It’s Not On the Test
No Child Left Behind Is Ruining Our Education System

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(scantron)

Remember the jackass educators in Washington D.C. who erased students’ incorrect answer bubbles and filled in the correct ones? So classy, so honest, such role models for the impressionable young minds they’re wearing down to nubs with high-pressure standardized tests. Adults suck. Need more fact-age to prove me right? Atlanta educators are slimy too:

Investigation into APS cheating finds unethical behavior across every level

America’s biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta

Report on Atlanta school cheating inquiry validates AJC analysis

Deal: APS cheating investigation outlines ‘dark chapter’ in system’s history

Atlanta school kids angry over cheating scandal

High-Stakes Testing & the Culture of Fear: The Atlanta Case, Report #1

Why Were Test Answer Sheets Altered? The Atlanta Case, Report #2

Atlanta Public Schools cheating: Some teachers admit guilt

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(Atlanta school bus)

Born too late for the homework-free society Race to Nowhere is bringing on? Sucks to be you. And me, I might add. Where in the hell was filmmaker Vicki Abeles when I was a wee slip of a thing, playing outside in the sunshine on my pink banana-seat BMX bike and feeling guilty about the 13 years of homework I never failed to put off until the morning it was due?

It’s amazing there hasn’t been a homework revolt before now; the kids have the numbers. School kids are like ants: If they ever decide to take over, there’s not a lot the human adults can do about it. I’m just saying.

I’m a firm believer that Thank-You Notes and the grandparents who force kids to write them are the devil’s work, but every public school student from K-12 should at least send Race to Nowhere’s Abeles a good thought, if not a huge-ass muffin basket.

Further Reading:

New Recruit in Homework Revolt: The Principal
Race to Nowhere

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(banana seat bike)

Have I not stated the utter worthlessness of standardized tests? They’re the faster, stronger, better version of pure evil; the quickest way to inadequately measure how the infinitesimally funded teachers of the American public school system educate their K-12 pupils.

Filling in bubbles on a one-size-fits-all metric of knowledge absorption is not only the most efficient way to measure crap, it’s also the most easily manipulated. The statistically improbable number of erasures and corrections on the bubble sheets for D.C. public schools is worth digging into. Most specifically, the D.C. schools that had made the best progress in their No Child Left Behind numbers. The schools Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan gave high praise and cash-money teacher bonuses to in recognition for their awesome test scores. Those scores being the ones from the overly erasured answer sheets. Wait…

Again I will shock us all by going way out on a limb and state that NCLB is a shite system, it still doesn’t work, and neither does the newly bizarre system involving removing money from the public school system while promising teachers that if they can teach their charges better than all the other under-funded educators, then they will get to keep their jobs and will be given bonus money.

Further Reading:

When Standardized Test Scores Soared In D.C., Were the Gains Real?
President Obama’s Plan For Education
Sen. Obama’s Education Reform Speech
It’s Not On the Test
No Child Left Behind Is Ruining Our Education System
Obama’s Race To the Top
Teacher Compensation Reform
Accountability

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(eraser)

Brought to you by Teacher Certification Map and MAT@USC | Master’s of Arts in Teaching

Seriously, all of you possible teen drop-outs with too much reality on your plates to be able to handle the mundanity of high school: do everything in your power to avoid letting down the adults (parentals and the Dept. of Education) who have clearly done everything except get you through your childhood in one piece. You owe them so much.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I’m a badass tomboy, made of stone and all that. Getting misty-eyed and writing in my Feelings Journal is not my thing. Teacher and blogger, Paul Bogush, wrote this post about the learning experiences students deserve to have and why devoted teachers choose to teach.

Excerpt teaser:

Our classes should be filled with unforgettable learning experiences.

I just watched a video from Steven Spangler. In it he says that teachers are not creating unforgettable learning experiences. We teach facts, not wonder, discovery, and exploration. Good teachers teach facts. Great teachers give students an unforgettable learning experiences. The student might not even remember what was learned in the class, but will remember loving the fact that they were sitting there every day. More…

It didn’t make me cry like a dumb wussy girl, but I did think grateful thoughts, yet again, that I’ve been lucky enough to have had some phenomenal teachers in my life.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(unsinkable 101)

Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in America is Ryan’s account of the research he did comparing and contrasting two high schools in Richmond Virginia. There is an unfair, and–one would hopefully argue–un-American disparity in the educational opportunities for each school’s students. Mr. Ryan not only lays the situation out for us all to fully comprehend, he also offers solutions to a problem we are smart enough to have solved by now.

Sadly, our severe lameness as Americans–who continually spout off about freedom and equality and the right to a decent education (we drive the proverbial big truck), in order to compensate for the fact that our public schools are lacking (in order to compensate for our proverbial, unfortunately sized penises)–has mightily contributed to the less-than-illuminated public education system in this great nation of ours. I love America and that damn National Anthem makes me cry every time, but that doesn’t mean I have to love the way politicians allocate funds.

Martha Minow’s In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark, covers what has and what hasn’t been achieved since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka[italics] brought the idea of racial equality in public schools to the forefront. How equal are American public schools? Is it possible they’re more segregated now than they were before Brown?

Minow, in case you’ve not heard every Obama speech, was the professor Obama spoke of in a 2008 campaign speech, “When I was at Harvard Law School I had a teacher who changed my life—Martha Minow.” She’s Dean of the Harvard Law School, but more impressive (to me) is the fact that she’s considered an expert in human rights and advocacy for persons with disabilities, women, children, and for members of racial and religious minorities. All of which is to say that she uses her powers for good and I am always appreciative of that quality in a fellow human.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Because everyone deserves to explain themselves, especially after a few high-profile articles come out telling the general public you’ve recanted your strongly held beliefs in your new book, below are some excerpts from Diane Ravitch’s Education Week blog, Bridging Differences. In the post, she explains what in the hell is actually going on, what she believes, and why she thinks her book is doing so well amongst the education community despite everyone else’s crankiness.

From Ravitch’s post, What I Did Not Recant or Abandon:

I have not changed my fundamental belief that all children should have a great education that includes not just basic skills, but history, literature, geography, civics, the arts, science, foreign languages, and physical education. I have never changed my wish that all children should have well-educated teachers who love their subjects and are well prepared to teach them to their students. I have never changed my skepticism about fads, miracles, and silver bullets, which come and go with great frequency in U.S. education. I have never abandoned my respect for the men and women who teach children and do the daily work that others (including me) talk and write about. I am not opposed to testing, but to the misuse of testing to punish people and close schools.

What did I abandon? The hope that choice and accountability could magically achieve the ends that I believe in. I am not opposed to choice—everyone should be free to choose another school if the school their child attends is not right for the child. And I do not oppose accountability, so long as it is used to help teachers, principals, and schools do a better job, not to punish them.

All of this is to set the record straight. On the whole, I am staggered, astonished really, by the response to the book. I am especially gratified by the warm reception it has received from teachers. Nothing good can come of any reform that teachers do not embrace: That is one of the lessons of my book. More…

I respect Ms. Ravitch immensely, and have been impressed always by her intellectual and logical take on education. I therefore find it hard to believe that she would suddenly do an about-face with no cause or forethought. She has nothing to gain by doing that, and she has her credibility to lose. The only humans that can claim open-mindedness are the ones that take in all available information, ponder the hell out of it, and then decide what their opinion is.

Included in a person’s claim to being open-minded is the ability and responsibility to continue absorbing information as the situation changes. How stupid would some jackass on the Titanic have been if he’d stood his ground and been sucked into the cold, dark sea screaming, “It’s unsinkable, I tell you! Unsinkable! You’re all idiots! Stay on board! It’s unsinkable!” Things change. Situations change. The world changes. Good thing we higher-thinking humans have the capacity to change our thinking.

Further Reading:

Q & A With Diane Ravitch
What I Did Not Recant or Abandon
“What’s Wrong With Merit Pay”
Accountability
Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate
In New Book, Ravitch Recants Long-Held Beliefs
Get Congress Out of the Classroom
Time to Kill ‘No Child Left Behind’

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image credit: ozier muhammad/ny times)

Below is an excerpt from President Obama’s State of the Union Address 2010. I’m not on board with his primary and secondary education reform plans, which may be smarter than Bush’s NCLB Act, but are also more evil.

However, so far his plans for higher education look to be an improvement. I’m especially liking the Pell Grant increases, the lessening of student loan malevolence, and the attempt to have colleges and universities knock it the hell off already with the insane tuition increases.

Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job. That’s why I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career pathway to the children of so many working families. (Applause.)

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. (Applause.) Instead, let’s take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. (Applause.) And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years — and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college. (Applause.)

And by the way, it’s time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs — (applause) — because they, too, have a responsibility to help solve this problem.

Posted by Alexa Harrington