"‘Education reform’ actually a handout to corporations With the new public school year just underway and new strategies being launched, now seems an opportune time to address what is called “education reform.” There is no data to support its policies — namely, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top — whose common traits include “testing and accountability,” teacher evaluations, and sanctions — all of which result in massive corporate profits. A 2010 Economic Policy Institute report, for instance, concluded that because “student test scores are not reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness” even with value-added-modeling, the policy is “likely to harm teachers (and) the children they instruct.” Furthermore, overemphasis on testing has been shown to narrow the curriculum — and indeed, Finland, best in the world on international tests, doesn’t have standardized tests at all. - by Kelly Maeshiro, a Pearl City High School graduate who served as the student member on the Hawaii Board of Education in 2009-10. Kelly is currently a senior at Harvard University."
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:54:14 +0000
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