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
Obama and Boehner: Education nonsense
- 03-16-2011
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Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post
It’s hard to keep track of who is making less sense on education in Washington D.C. right now: the Democratic president or the top Republican. President Obama gave a speech this week about the need to rewrite No Child Left Behind, which makes sense given that the law has not achieved its main goal of closing the achievement gap and instead has ushered in an era of high-stakes standardized tests and curriculum that squeezes out everything but the basics -- and doesn’t even do a good job teaching kids reading and writing and math. But too much of the rest of what he said has little bearing in reality. Speaking directly to teachers, for example, he said that while the country needs better assessments to figure out how students are progressing, “I’m not talking about more tests. I’m not talking about teaching to the test.” Really? Then why have his policies pushed states and school districts to evaluate and pay teachers according to students’ standardized test scores, which is resulting in the development of new and more tests to assess kids in subjects not covered now by such exams? (more...)
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