Five Best Blogs: The (Mild) Wrath Of Khan

Sal Khan responds to critic - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post ow.ly/cwkFT

My ideas to make accountability better: http://t.co/iIfQaYyI  @kevincarey1

A Rare Case For Active Investing - In Public Education Reforms - Forbes Rex Sinquefield, Contributorow.ly/cwdrY

Georgia students return to school and to new Common Core Standards  http://t.co/8jmh58pQ @theuseducation 

Pittsburgh about to undergo largest teacher layoff in district's history http://t.co/7x7nyUMS @nctq 

Education headline to look forward to:  "Rahm v. Kahn"

Comments

[Bruce]

Reading through the comments that followed the Georgia story about the Common Core, I am reminded of the Education Sector bi-weekly report I read this morning on the same, under the rubric "Good News, Bad News": the bad news is that the teachers think they are already teaching this stuff. They don't get it: you don't "teach standards"; you teach so that students can reach standards, and the overwhelming evidence is that too many students, especially in the South, have long been not reaching them. What's more, they are not well aware of what's going to be on the tests, which is natural since the tests are still being made; but from the descriptions I've seen, their current students will generally be far below proficient in their performance on such tests.

[Sarah]

It’s a product of the economic turmoil we face, perhaps, but indeed, students aren’t meeting requirements. I’m not 100% sure Common Core is the best approach to begin with, personally, but if it’s not even taught correctly, how do we know?

[Sarah]

I hate to see any person lose a job, but it's still happening and will keep happening. It's not just teachers. A local green energy plant in my area just laid off half of their 300-person workforce, Cisco announced they're laying off 1,300, and there are hundreds of smaller stores, banks, businesses all facing the same thing. Sadly, no one's job seems safe.