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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News & analysis:
Colorado Supreme Court Upholds State’s K-12 Funding System
As state legislatures continue to close up shop for this year, significant education news has occurred in the last few days involving both Texas and Colorado. Let’s review important activity in both states quickly. (Education Week – State Ed Watch)
New York:
Anthony Weiner In Debate Questions Some Bloomberg Education Reforms
Anthony Weiner, the son of a former public school teacher, said his views on education run “deep in my bones.” Fresh off the announcement of his campaign for New York City mayor and Tuesday’spromising poll numbers, the disgraced former congressman spoke at the first mayoral debate of his 2013 run. The debate, hosted by the union-funded New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, focused on education in the nation’s largest school district. (Huffington Post)
View Point:
John Thompson: Aren’t Schools for “Square Pegs” Also?
L. Todd’s Rose’s Square Peg should be required reading for all teachers and school reformers. Rose, who was diagnosed with ADHD, was an impulsive and disruptive high school dropout before he became a neuroscience expert at Harvard. The blurbs on the cover of Square Peg implied it was a “manifesto” for school reforms based on “Big Ideas” and “disruptive innovation,” but it concludes in a balanced analysis of the positive and negative potential of technology. (Huffington Post)
Tom Vander Ark: Why We Need Common Standards and Better Tests
It’s testing season — and it’s easy to criticize state tests these days. Tests take a lot of time near the end of the year and the results don’t come back very quickly. Grade level tests aren’t always a good indication of what students were taught or what they know and can do. (Huffington Post)
Teachers Could Shift the Conversation About Assessment and Accountability
In Chapter 9 of the ten-part video series, A Year at Mission Hill, we are reminded that the word “assess” comes from the Latin, “to sit next to.” Then we see the assessment that Mission Hill’s teachers do, all the while sitting next to students. The word assessment has been so over-associated with standardized tests — particularly the high-stakes ones that states require under federal law – that it’s astonishing when the seven-minute video concludes and we realize we have seen nothing requiring multiple choice responses. (Education Week – Of, By, For)