- Let the ongoing cheating scandal in Atlanta ever be a reminder: Holding teachers, students, and school leaders accountable for student learning doesn’t just mean administering tests. It also means keeping those tests secure and valid.
- At its annual meeting this past weekend, the NEA voted to publically scorn Teach For America and attack Arne Duncan; yet they also voted to endorse President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. To quote Alice of Wonderland, “curiouser and curiouser.”
- 2011 has been decreed “the year of school choice.” In the first six months of ’11, eleven states and the District of Columbia have passed school-choice legislation, most of it expanding voucher and tax-credit scholarship programs. Seven states have created new choice programs. Gimme a “V”!
- Good news for school-level autonomy. During their quarterly meeting this week, PARCC members voted to nix through-course assessments from their Common Core assessment design.
- Democracy Prep is venturing into risky and uncharted waters next school year: The high-quality CMO is taking over a failing charter school. An innovative governance idea—and a potentially new route to scaling-up the charter movement.
- David Brooks rebuts (and rebuffs) Diane Ravitch, including this powerful point: “If your school teaches to the test, it’s not the test’s fault. It’s [that of] the leaders of your school.”
