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"The next mayor of New York City faces some tough challenges particularly when it comes to setting public education priorities. Should he or she abandon Mayor Michael Bloomberg's fixation on testing and data-driven accountability, or expand school choice and close failing classrooms to give more options to families, especially English-language learners and those in low-income communities?"

"I recently published a post about how a teacher in New York was wronged by the state's controversial new educator evaluation system, which is based in large part on student standardized test scores. Here's a story about a school principal's personal experience with the scores. This was written by Sean C. Feeney, principal of The Wheatley School in New York and president of the Nassau County High School Principals Association. He is a co-author of  the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It has been signed by more than 1,535 New York principals and more than 6,500 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens."

"The first problem is that Gideon seems to be convinced that there is only one right way to solve a problem and if he does not solve it that way he will be marked wrong. This problem he will get over either as he learns more about how the world works or becomes less interested in pleasing his teachers. The second problem is a bit more serious to me as a teacher and grandparent. Instead of trying to understand a math problem and being willing to play with the numbers, Gideon is committed to remembering a long, complicated sequence of steps to finding a solution. If he makes a mistake somewhere in the sequence he gets the answer incorrect, but he does not recognize it as incorrect, because his goal was following the prescribed steps, not coming up with a result that makes sense."

"There is a widening gulf - a not-so-grand canyon - between how our school community in the Lower Hudson Valley sees the world and how our state education leadership sees the same old world. As an education reporter covering the state-imposed reforms, I am repeatedly struck by this dichotomy. Everyone professes to be in the education game for the kids - the very same kids - yet the state Board of Regents and Commissioner John King find themselves in an increasingly nasty stare-down with this region and Long Island, plus lots of folks from New York City and the rest of this vast state."

"According to The New York Times, the New York State Attorney General has exposed the supposedly non-profit Pearson Foundation for what it really is, a partner with the for-profit wing of the global Pearson publishing mega-giant. The Pearson Foundation agreed to pay a penalty of over seven million dollars to New York State that will be used to prepare teachers to work in high needs communities. According to New York State law, foundations are prohibited by law from using charitable funds to promote and develop for-profit activities."

"The following post was written by Chester E. Finn Jr., President, and Michael J. Petrilli, Executive Vice-President, of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C."

They, too, are not 'well-grounded,' so to speak, because the authors of the standards have failed to factor in some crucial elements or aspects of instruction. This failure of foresight and insight will surely cause the standards to 'sink' - to become ineffective, inappropriate, and intolerable. The biggest problem with this 'sinking' that is sure to happen is that the students, teachers, and indeed, whole school systems that will labor under these burdensome 'goals and expectations' will sink right along with them.

Video of Commissioner King's presentation at the NYSCOSS Fall Conference on Superintendent Leadership and the Regents Reform Agenda.

Presentation to NYS School Superintendents.

On Oct. 1, 650 people attended the 4th annual Northwest Teachers for Social Justice conference in Seattle.  Rethinking Schools editor Stan Karp gave a well-received talk on "Challenging Corporate Ed Reform." He ended on an uplifting note with " 10 hopeful, tangible signs of organizing resistance and alternatives to the corporate reform agenda."    The following is an excerpt from that presentation.

"THE AMERICAN Federation of Teachers (AFT) leadership is straining to balance growing unrest among union members and their strategy of making concessions in the name of "partnership." "

"Here is an open letter to Alexander and his committee about the NCLB rewrite that was written by an award-winning principal, Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York."

"This is a life-or-death time for the American Federation of Teachers. The July 12-14, 2014, convention reflected both positive movement, and continuing obstacles, for our union. As we take on the challenges we all face with the opening of schools, we AFT members will face both from our union. Much will depend on how successfully we get our union to respond."