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"This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is the author of the bestselling "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," an important critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement that she just updated."

By requiring all students to demonstrate what they have "learned" in multiple subject areas through standardized tests written in English, and by reducing resources for helping students become multilingual, the U.S. continues to build a wall between our nation and the global community.

For our children's sake, we can't keep promoting the illusion that Americans are so superior to the rest of the world that we can or should insist that our way (language, culture, politics) is the best or only way. Within the context of our current standardized testing culture, common standards reinforce the fallacy that all children *should* learn (and are able to learn) the same things - and to the same level of performance - at a particular age.

Editorial about a recommendation by the AFT Pres to develop a professional certification for teachers.  It's about time...

Mark & Michelle, thank you for your comments. When I posted this I knew the words "standardized test" would be a flashpoint. It is for me too. With nearly 40 years in the classroom, teaching a creative art (music) to all different levels (kindergarten through college and well beyond), I have often railed against reducing any education, any student, to a number. Very little in what I have taught can be measured with a pencil-and-paper test. What I see here is different than this. It is the union that she is saying should be the "gate-keeper" to our profession, rather than some generic government standard test. Yes, tests would be a part of the certification, but from what I read, so would much more, including actual classroom work. The certification would be similar to the AMA for physicians or the Bar for attorneys. These are certifications designed and administered by the profession - not the government - and validate a candidate's readiness to practice. Yes, I too am strongly against the government, or any organization outside of our profession, to certify, to validate, a teacher's ability to do the job. But we have to admit there is a problem with teacher certification and validation. There are people who simply should not be in the classroom (haven't we all seen them?). It is very difficult to remove folks who are dragging the respect for our profession down. Yes, there is remediation. Yes, it should be a difficult process to remove someone in order to protect against administrative abuses. But what is talked about here is the profession policing itself - something that the teacher's unions, in general, have steadfastly refused to do. What the AFT Pres is suggesting is that the best thing we can do to raise the status of teaching as a profession is to take action ourselves to make it happen. Really, if we in the profession do not do this, then it will be imposed from those outside who do not know what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

You are still talking about a standardized test. Let's face it--doctors have to have specific knowledge to do their job. Whether or not they are creative or engaging is not as important as their knowledge base. The same with lawyers--knowledge of the law is essential, and everything else is secondary. However, in teaching, although educational theory and knowledge of their subject area is important (and already tested, by the way) the most essential aspect of teaching is how you can creatively engage students, interact with parents and peers, and stay organized and motivated. These things CAN'T BE TESTED. Right now, teachers already go through extensive training, evaluation, and continuing education. Do you REALLY think that a standardized test will really improve teaching? I know a lot of university professors who can easily pass a test, but few of them can teach worth beans.

"You are a college professor. I have just retired as a high school teacher. I have some bad news for you. In case you do not already see what is happening, I want to warn you of what to expect from the students who will be arriving in your classroom, even if you teach in a highly selective institution."

Learn about the Title I School Improvement Grant Program and how the communities of Mobile, Alabama; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Chattanooga, Tennessee were successful in implementing turnaround, restart and transformation models to revitalize and transform their lowest performing schools.

Good principal fired to collect federal govt. money in ed reform initiative

First in a series of NPR reports on School Makeovers. Transcript and link to audio of broadcast. "If a school is consistently failing and kids aren't learning, shut it down. Start over with new teachers and administrators willing to do something dramatically different. Closing failing schools and turning them around has been in vogue since No Child Left Behind, and now the Obama Administration is embracing the idea. It's even offering millions of dollars to school districts to help them do it."

The U.S. secretary of education always has a big bully pulpit. President Barack Obama's brand new secretary of education, Chicago's Arne Duncan, has a big bully pulpit plus a huge pile of stimulus money - one hundred billion dollars - to shake up American education.

As it happened, New York state just released the results of its annual tests of English language arts and mathematics, and the scores soared across the state to an extent that was literally unbelievable.

Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards. "What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project" "We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."