Filed under Testing …

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 →

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 →

Why Ph.D.s Shouldn’t Teach College Students

Despite a college degree’s enormous cost, almost halfof college freshmen (43%) don’t graduate even if given six years. If they graduate, a 2011 national study found, 36% of the 1,600 students tested “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” in four years. And in the just-published follow-up, which tracked those students since their graduation … Continue reading →

In India, Revealing the Children Left Behind

Right now, all over rural India, this is happening: Two local volunteers with a few days’ training come into the village. They knock on randomly selected doors, asking to see all children ages 6 to 16 who live there. In the front yard of the house, they test the children one by one in reading … Continue reading →

In New York, Vocational Skills Could Count Toward Diploma

The New York State Board of Regents gave initial approval to a major change to high school graduation requirements on Monday, allowing students to earn their diplomas with one fewer test if they pass another assessment in a range of subjects like languages, the arts, hospitality management and carpentry. Students have had to pass five … Continue reading →

3 ‘Game Changing’ Ideas From an Ed-Tech Start-Up Competition

More than two dozen start-up technology companies exhibited at this week’s Educause conference, making their pitches in a section of the exhibit hall the group calls “start-up alley.” Some of the companies are led by recent graduates, others by professors, and many competed in the group’s Game Changers Business Competition. Here are three ideas from … Continue reading →

NIH Issues $10-Million in Grants to Cut Gender-Based Test Biases

The National Institutes of Health … announced more than $10-million in grant supplements to bring gender balance to the subjects of medical lab work, its largest financial commitment to ending the research bias. The awards, covering 82 recipients, come four months after the NIH—the world’s largest provider of money for medical research—promised to more aggressively … Continue reading →

Higher Education Scrambles to Get Ready for the Common Core

In sterile, air-conditioned conference rooms across the state, educators will be gathering this summer to prepare for the new standards soon to be in place in most of the nation’s kindergartens through high schools called Common Core. But the people at these meetings won’t be primary- or secondary-school teachers. They’ll be university professors, planning changes … Continue reading →