When children face pressure to learn to read early in kindergarten and run into trouble, will they be diagnosed with learning disabilities when they only need more time? Creating one-size-fits-all, high-stakes standardized tests demanding children read by first grade creates pressure on the child, parent, and teacher. Higher-than-usual expectations have existed since 2001, and NCLB […]
Student Differentiation v. Alignment: Know the Difference and Set Children Free
In a democracy that stresses freedom and individuality, education reformers remade public schools focusing on aligning children to narrow high-stakes standards, even before Common Core State Standards appeared in 2010. It isn’t easy to differentiate when the end goal is the same narrow standard. Standards don’t involve differentiating how children learn. Teachers might try individual […]
The Troubling Focus on Testing Rewards, Testing Pep Rallies, and Test Prep Bootcamps
With spring comes heightened concerns about public school students facing high-stakes standardized tests and the troubling focus on testing rewards, testing pep rallies, and test prep boot camps. It makes schooling and a student’s worth all about the test. Testing is a serious business. Test results have been used to rate teacher performance unfairly, and […]
Anxiety and Depression in the Age of the Super Student
The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, a group of doctors, recently recommended screening children as young as eight for major depressive disorder (MDD). How do eight-year-olds wind up depressed? Depression they say could show up with functional impairments in school performance. Could it be in part because this is the age of the super student? […]
Dear Dr. Cardona: Punitive Student Assessment is Meant to Privatize Public Schools!
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona recently wrote to tell state education departments not to use test data punitively after the pandemic. He doesn’t seem to understand the history of high-stakes testing and its use to privatize public schools. From Cardona: The purpose of this letter is to remind all who report and interpret student outcomes this […]
14 MORE Ways Teachers are Disrespected!
Add these to the previous list. 1. Data Teachers are tired of relentless data collection and don’t like being conduits for companies to collect and track information on students, families, and themselves. Improving privacy laws for children has been slow going. Here’s a video covering concerns about data collection in schools. Here’s a description of […]
Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!
The Biden administration chose a real educator to be education secretary. Now Dr. Cardona should move to end third-grade retention, a procedure that would be especially cruel administered with this pandemic. Many alternative plans are available to help children do better in school that won’t involve the humiliation of retention. Cardona should withhold federal funds […]