After reading some very positive reviews, I was quite disappointed with this book (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, by Diane Ravitch). While there are many good ideas in the book, it’s excruciatingly repetitive, poorly organized, and fails to persuade. Read more »
The folly of high-stakes testing, test-score-based merit pay for teachers, and other misguided concepts behind “No Child Left Behind” (and other recent and current educational misadventures) are the subject of Dave Ellison’s column today (April 26) in the Daily Review (Hayward, CA). (The same column is also posted on Ellison’s blog, “A Teacher’s Marks.”) Read it.
Ellison writes about a new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, by Diane Ravitch, who was once a fervent advocate of these concepts, but who now rejects them as unwise, based on years of data. Read more »