2016 has begun with important news: We have endured the last days of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan roaming the halls of government, looking for teachers and students to intimidate. Arne, "the nation's bully," no longer runs the schoolyard. Educators and families around the country will remember him by many monikers, none of them sympathetic. …
Continue reading Arne Duncan: Testocracy Tsar. Educational Alchemist. Corporate lackey.
Never in U.S. history have more students, parents, and teachers engaged in acts of resistance to standardized tests. During the 2015 testing season, over 620,000 public school students around the U.S. refused to take standardized exams, according to a report by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). I wrote this essay for …
Continue reading Five 2015 victories that put cracks in the ‘testocracy’
The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, know as FairTest, just released its wonderful report on the immense growth around the country of the movement in opposition to the abuses of standardized testing. The victories included universities getting rid of their SAT/ACT requirement, states dropping the requirement for an exit exam to graduate from …
A couple of weeks ago, Gwen Ifill and the PBS News Hour crew flew to Seattle. They spent one day following me and one day following the richest person who ever lived, Bill Gates, to ask us about our ideas on education reform. I was simply shocked to hear that they would be running an …
Arne Duncan has been one of the most destructive forces to public education in the history of our country. Duncan was appointed by President Obama as the Secretary of Education, but his real role has been "testocracy tsar"--as his signature policies of Race to the Top and Common Core have been singularly focused on promoting …
I AM AN EDUCATOR 
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