Back in 2009, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) research group at Stanford University caused a huge stir with their report that claimed only a small proportion of charter school students were outperforming their traditional public school counterparts. That was then. CREDO recently released an updated report, “National Charter School Study 2013,” and…
Reports of the school-aged population in the United States scoring lower on international testing are old hat these days, but a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the mathematical and technical skill level of adults in its member nations is raising eyebrows from New York to the West Coast.…
I want to make it clear from the outset that I don’t think anyone who created the Common Core State Standards ever considered some of the unintended consequences of their vague standards. In fact, I doubt this ever entered their minds. But, there are consequences when standards are not clear to teachers. And, those consequences…
The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that a BASIS charter school in Tucson scored even higher than students from Shanghai, an Asian education powerhouse, on recent international tests. The National Center says of the BASIS Tucson North school: “The Tucson charter school outscored all 40 countries that administered the 2012 PISA, or Programme for…
It might not be our teachers! A new article from WFPL’s Devin Katayama, “Kentucky Colleges Should Improve Recruitment, Training for Would-Be Teachers, Education Leaders Say,” adds to concerns about claims that deficiencies in the vague and incomplete Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) will all be fixed by Kentucky teachers…
This great question comes from Kentucky Youth Advocates head Terry Brooks. You may need a subscription to read his great post, “Are Kindergarten Classrooms Ready for all Kids?” in Education Week’s blogs. A key Brooks point: “Greatness for…any elementary school must include being ready for those kindergarteners as they walk through the door just as…
After the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) scores came out last year, I ran a comparison of the proficiency rates reported by the new testing program to other credible test results for Kentucky. I now start to update that 2012 work with the new results from K-PREP for middle school math, reading and…
This is a nice, 11-minute overview of the problems with Common Core State Standards.
Is Kentucky’s “Unbridled Learning” school accountability program hiding serious problems? I am starting to look at the new spreadsheets released last Friday from Kentucky’s second year of the Unbridled Learning public school accountability system. Already, I am disturbed by what I am finding even though I’ve only looked at the high school math performance. Very…
High school graduates won’t be prepared to pursue four-year degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math (From Pioneer’s Press Release) BOSTON – National mathematics standards adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia that supporters say are designed to make high school graduates “college- and career-ready” and improve the critical science, technology, engineering and…