Reading Delights

For those looking for more background, and analysis of No Child Left Behind, you might want to consider looking at Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. It has chapters written by folks like Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, Linda Darling-Hammond, Theodore Sizer, and George Wood. Its about 120 pages of text, and a relatively quick read. I'm in the midst of it at the moment, and gives more context to the world we are stepping into. I found mine at the Seattle Public Library....

In addition, for those who are looking for more background on charter schools, check out What Do We Know About the Outcomes of KIPP Schools? There is a pdf on the bottom, and I think there is a condensed version somewhere. This relates to KIPP, the Knowledge is Power Program that has become all the rage (for AND against) when talking about charter schools. Test factory sweatshop or incredible educational institution?

Public Repudiates WASL?

Randy Dorn defeated Terry Bergeson in the election for Washington's Superintendent of Public Instruction. Dorn has been outspoken in his desire to remove the WASL as the standardized test of choice here, although it isn't entirely clear what he will implement instead. Are we witnessing the WASL's slow fade into the sunset? How will we better measure student learning, and maintain the facet of public accountability (the A word it is the name of the game)?

This conversation is timely for me, as I am reading Deborah Meier's In Schools We Trust. In the book she points out how in many other fields second opinions are sought. You don't simply look at one reference point and make a judgement. We ask questions about what we are seeing, and also about the proper interventions necessary. Our testing process is decontextualized, much like HMO's that only have access to a patient's symptoms- and thereafter make a diagnosis. This doesn't even get into the history of standardized tests, which were a way of ranking people and putting them above or below the "bell curve." My head is spinning. Anyone want to create a book group, for I fear I'll bug my wife too much with my "ooh check this out..." reactions?