Morning Commentary

Our Schools Must Do Better NYT (Bob Herbert)
The U.S. has not yet faced up to the fact that it needs a school system capable of fulfilling the educational needs of children growing up in an era that will be at least as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 19th.

The cost of killing education reform Long Beach Press-Telegram
This could be the end of the line for No Child Left Behind. And some educators couldn't be happier...Public schools have, for generations, crafted an environment that caters to the needs and wants of the adults who work in the schools rather than those of the children who attend them.

Guest Commentary: Kevin Kosar On Muddled AYP Fixes

In the Sunday New York Times Magazine, Ann Hulbert wrote (Standardizing the Standards) that “With “high stakes” testing, N.C.L.B. introduces an incentive not to cheat, necessarily, but to manipulate. Signs are that states define proficiency down while schools ramp up narrow test prep.”

What’s the solution to this problem? “The National Assessment of Educational Progress could serve as a model for a test that judges students’ ability to apply their knowledge and thus discourages [sic] rote coaching. But recent experience … argues against making test results the sole trigger of federal sanctions.”

This is a bit of a muddle. The feds should create a new test for reasons unclear but the test results are not to be the “sole trigger” for accountability.