** “People don’t send their children to schools farther from home to take advantage of higher spending or the specialization of ‘magnet’ schools,’ which do less integrating than cherry picking. And lack of spending is not the main reason schools become terrible. No, people move their kids to get them away from the neglected kids who drag schools down, kids who enter even kindergarten three grades behind, and schools are made terrible mainly by terrible students.” ~ Chris Powell, The Day Op Ed piece
** “Like it or not, massive online examinations are coming to your district. And when they do it, it will be for keeps. The reasoning behind that is simple enough. The efficiencies in that delivery model are too large to ignore. But at the same time, so are the risks. There’s the risk of large-scale failures compromising controlled testing conditions, sure. But the bigger concerns are about the lack of flexibility to meet local needs, such as accommodating special education students. As these kinds of high-stakes assessments are now central to our collective definition of schooling success, both the positives and the negatives of the assessment delivery systems are magnified. Any interruption or injustices emerging from these systems are likely to be highly scrutinized and can potentially lead to litigation. The road to full implementation of online assessments is likely to be rocky, and school officials would do well to begin detailed preparation for that journey immediately.” ~ Jonathon Bathon, The Journal
** “Civics proponents’ wishes have fallen mostly on deaf ears. Through promotion of the Common Core State Standards, the Obama administration and its allies orchestrated one of the most dramatic assertions of federal power into K-12 education since Brown v Board of Education in 1954, but failed to promote civics where it counts–in the common core’s package of standards and assessments. These documents determine what will be taught to more than 40 million children across the United States. Because the core is barren of civics–the word does not appear in the 66-page standards document for English/language arts–the imperatives of the ‘not tested, not taught’ mindset will diminish time for citizenship education, as it did under the No Child Left Behind Act.” ~ Web Hutchins, teacher & 2013 Civic Educator of the Year winner
