History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Unprecedented testing madness
- 07-07-2011
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Blog by Mike Klonsky/Small Talk
It's been denounced by educators far and wide. Education research has approached a consensus on its negative effects, especially on poor kids and children of color. President Obama has repeatedly criticized it. The world's highest performing school systems discard it. Yet the nation's standardized testing madness, sanctioned under No Child Left Behind law, continues to expand at an unprecedented pace, leaving in its wake a badly weakened American public school system rocked by cheating scandals, most recently in D.C., Baltimore and Atlanta, and marked by school "failure" and what amounts to virtual widespread child abuse as it spreads down to younger and younger children. This and the previous administration's testing policies which increasingly tie student test scores to rewards and punishments, to school closings, teacher firings and so-called "merit pay," have actually served to incentivize cheating and de-professionalize teaching. (more...)
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