Berliner Nails Testing

Dr David Berliner has penned a must-read for every person concerned about education.

But because Secretary Duncan does not have classroom experience, he may not know that teachers evaluate their students every day, 180 times a school year. The fact that under our laws these teachers have no say in evaluating their students’ skills and abilities is really quite ludicrous.

Bye Bye NCLB

Obama proposes major changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka NCLB).

Educators who have been briefed by administration officials said the proposals for changes in the main law governing the federal role in public schools would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, associations of principals, school boards and other groups have found most objectionable.

Replacing those old objectionable items are new ones: national "common" standards, unbridled charter school expansion, achievement-driven Title funding, and teacher "bonus-pay" based on student test scores.

I must get some of those teleprompters for my classroom.

The Politics of Testing Gaps

Testing was once used to measure what a student learned. NCLB turned it into a political tool.

Kindergarten Make Your Belly Ache?

Well, probably not if you attended Kindergarten over two decades ago. Since then things have dramatically changed.

What we expected of first-graders 20 years ago is being required of kindergartners today. Reading. Sight vocabulary. Spelling. Writing. Yes, many 5-year-olds can learn those things, but many can't pass the stress test. They react with belly-aches, misbehavior and hating school.

That, my friends, is the unintended consequence of No Child Left Behind and any other legislation that rewards performance on multiple choice tests over authentic learning. Kids burn out. Kids drop out.

Who would say such? A Kindergarten teacher.