Tag Archives: standardized testing

Standardized testing can impoverish children’s education

The testing culture that drives current educational decision-making in our schools impoverishes children in many ways. One of the external forces interfering with student learning is time stolen from teaching.  A middle school colleague in Maine recently told me she literally lost five weeks of instructional time each year to standardized testing. In a system where […]

Quality of Teachers is Key

  A school ultimately sinks or swims on the quality of its teachers and of their relationships with students. Therefore the careful hiring of teachers is key, as well as expert attention to anything that impacts the work life of those teachers, or their relationships with students. Another way of saying this is that administrators […]

21st Century Skills at Risk

What should schools be teaching? What is fundamental to the skill set of an educated person? According to the Framework for 21st Century Learning, created by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills with the encouragement of the U.S. Department of Education, among skills at the center of the curriculum should be : Critical thinking. Communication. Collaboration. Creativity. I think […]