Filed under Assessment …

Why I Went from Proctored Exams to Open-book

The pandemic encouraged me to re-think the way we can assess student learning in large general education courses. Last spring, the proctoring centers had to close down, and live proctoring with a person at the other end was no longer an option. There was an automated system in place, but there were technical difficulties with … Continue reading →

California’s Community Colleges Can’t Live With Accreditor, Can’t Live Without It

A handful of California’s community colleges may have a problem offering new bachelor’s-degree programs, as planned, by 2017. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, one of the nation’s seven regional accreditors, had asked the U.S. Department of Education to allow it to accredit baccalaureate programs at two-year colleges. The change sought by the … Continue reading →

What Exactly is Personalized Learning?

It remains to be seen exactly how and where Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, will spend the estimated $45 billion they’ve declared they will donate to charitable ventures, including education. But their announcement this week made one thing clear: in education, the two are focused on the potential of “personalized learning.” For … Continue reading →

The U.S. Congress Passes Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

[Last] week’s U.S. House passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, makes it clear: If you want to see education policy in the next few years, look to state capitols, not Washington, D.C. The current version of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act, created … Continue reading →

What Is the Point of College?

… [A]s higher education expands its reach, it’s increasingly hard to say what college is like and what college is for. In the United States, where I now teach, more than 17 million undergraduates will be enrolling in classes this fall. They will be passing through institutions small and large, public and private, two-year and … Continue reading →

Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often highstakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful. Specifically, the administration … Continue reading →

Atlanta Educators Convicted in School Cheating Scandal

In a dramatic conclusion to what has been described as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, a jury here on Wednesday convicted 11 educators for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools. On … Continue reading →

No Child Left Behind Law Faces Its Own Reckoning

Ginn Academy, the first and only public high school in Ohio just for boys, was conceived to help at-risk students make it through school — experimenting with small classes, a tough discipline code and life coaches around the clock. Its graduation rate was close to 88 percent last year, compared with 64 percent for theCleveland … Continue reading →