Blog Posts
Implementing the Common Core: A Look at Curriculum
Most analysts agree that the success or failure of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) hinges on implementation. But the term has been ambiguous. Advocates of CCSS talk about aligned curriculum, instructional shifts, challenging assessments that test critical thinking, and rigorous accountability systems that produce an accurate appraisal of whether students are on track to be college- or career-ready by the time they graduate from high school. These descriptions are unsatisfying. Heavy with flattering adjectives, they echo the confidence proponents have that CCSS will improve several important aspects of schooling. But such confidence may be misplaced; for example, decades—if not centuries—of effort have been devoted to the perfection of instruction. Moreover, when CCSS’s advocates talk about implementation, it seems to mean every important activity in education outside of adopting standards. By meaning almost everything, it means nothing.
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Homework Horror Stories
The 2014 Brown Center Report on American Education (2014 BCR), released last week, included a study of homework. The study revisits a question investigated in the 2003 BCR : how much homework do American students have? Recent stories in the popular press have featured children burdened with an enormous amount of homework, three hours or more per night. Are these students’ experiences typical or rare?
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PISA's China Problem Continues: A Response to Schleicher, Zhang, and Tucker
On October 2013, I posted an essay, “ PISA’s China Problem,” that called on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to fully disclose its arrangement with China regarding Shanghai’s participation in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The latest PISA scores were to be released in December, offering an excellent opportunity for the OECD to dispel the mystery surrounding Shanghai’s 2009 involvement with PISA. I noted that Shanghai, the wealthiest, most educated province in China, was the only mainland province officially participating in PISA 2009 and PISA 2012. Other data from rural areas of China had been talked about by PISA officials over the years, but never released to the public domain. I called on PISA to release those data.
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Attention OECD-PISA: Your Silence on China Is Wrong
On December 3, scores were released from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test given every three years to 15 year-olds around the globe. Shanghai led the world in all three subjects—math, science, and reading. But that ranking is misleading. Shanghai has a school system that excludes most migrant students, the children of families that have moved to the city from rural areas of China. And now for three years running, the OECD and PISA continue to promote a distorted picture of Shanghai’s school system by remaining silent on the plight of Chinese migrant children and what is one of the greatest human rights calamities of our time.
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Be Wary of Ranking NAEP Gains
Last week, the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released. The state of Tennessee performed exceptionally well, registering statistically significant gains from 2011 to 2013 on all four NAEP tests: fourth grade reading, fourth grade math, eighth grade reading, and eighth grade math. Tennesseans should be pleased with the progress the state is making in education.
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