Peter Schmidt: Videos ‘Ripped’ From Online-Course Footage Bring Threats to Instructors
Today the Chronicle of Higher Education posted this story on their website: The University...
Featured Article
The Common Core: Whose Standards Are They?
Over the past decades, testing has played a central role in justifying and brining about some of the most controversial reforms, such as school choice via charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and military academies for inner city youth. But possibly the most politically significant reform of all is the adoption of national standards and assessments. Whatever one may think of “choice” and “merit pay” and “boot strapping,” they are undoubtedly the legacy of Anglo-American political thought. But the idea — let alone the adoption of — a national curriculum appears as a sharp break with the foundation of the American Republic, the commitment to “state’s rights,” to decentralization and...
Opinion
Clever rhetoric won’t save your undemocratic reform from failure: An open letter to Arne Duncan on the occasion of teacher appreciation week
Dear Secretary Duncan, I am sure many have read your May 2, 2011 Open Letter to teachers. I am impressed with its rhetorical slight of hand, how it gently yet forcefully pushes — with all apparent conviction — what more and more of the research community and the public is rejecting. I presume that it is this...
Theory
Teachers have a right to unionize
The recipe is as follows: use “research” and phony evaluation systems to create a wedge between teachers and the public. Then, legally dismantle the basic right of teachers (and working people in general) to organize to defend their...
Research
Evidence on the quality of for-profit higher education?
A confluence of forces: a letter requesting my participation in doctoral dissertation research from a student at the University of Phoenix and an increase in for-profit ads endorsed by the Chronicle of Higher Education in my inbox. While we all make mistakes, the attached letter recruiting...
Reviews
Review of “A Measure of Failure: The Political Origins of Standardized Testing”
The February issue of Counseling Today carries a review of my book by Aaron W. Hughey, professor of counseling and student affairs, Western Kentucky University. The essay begins: “True or false: Proponents of standardized testing are, unintentionally or otherwise, pushing an agenda that intrinsically advocates racism and socioeconomic oppression. Intrigued? Then read on. It really is an understatement to claim that standardized testing permeates...
Blog
Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”
Bill Gates (clearly a very smart guy) has just topped my list of Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read for the first few months of 2011. He did it with this post in the
Stephen Sawchuk: States Aim to Curb Collective Bargaining
In this February 9 article, Sawchuck writes: First it was changes to pay, then evaluation systems, and...
Inside Higher Ed: For-Profit Colleges Open Another Front
The January 24, 2011 edition of Inside Higher Ed reported that...
Detroit Free Press: MEAP may be replaced by national online test
Following the Common Core Standards Blitzkrieg, spurred on by ARRA funds used to bribe states into compliance with the monopoly agenda of Gates et al,
Alan Singer: Charter Schools Don’t Do Miracles
Of course, I don’t believe in mircales, and so, this story is not a surprise. But what is bubbling underneath the rhetoric of the Obama/Duncan education reform agenda is more and more evidence of the...
"The Political Economy of Educational Restructuring: On the Origin of Performance Pay and Obama’s “Blueprint” for Education," in The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education Can Hope Audaciously Trump Neoliberalism? (Information Age Publishing)
