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Millions of Texas students head back to school this week confronted by a dramatically altered, state-mandated social studies curriculum.

A majority of states deserve a failing grade for how they handle the teaching of civil rights history in their standards, while just three-Alabama, Florida, and New York-merit an A, concludes a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"This essay briefly traces the history of testing in public schools from its beginnings in the 1920s, through the counter-productive No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law, to passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015. It then discusses the recent and rapid emergence of the testing resistance and reform movement."

"This brief reviews the history and current status of Parent Trigger legislation, presents a critique of the legislation, and suggests alternative ways to meet the stated goals of a Parent Trigger."

Charters are public schools, funded by taxpayers and widely promoted as open to all. But Reuters has found that across the United States, charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship, sometimes in violation of state and federal law.

"Congratulations to Carol Burris, co-author of the principal letter critiquing the APPR, the new NY state teacher evaluation system. Her school, South Side HS in Rockville Center, was just named the second best high school in the state, according to US News and World Report, and it is one of few non-selective relatively diverse schools on the list. Here is her explanation: "We do great things by challenging all kids, supporting them and not sorting them." It also can't hurt that her school has average class sizes of 17 (in math) to 23 (in social studies), according to its NYS report card. Carol adds: The typical class sizes for math, science and English are a bit higher than shown because we have every other day support classes in those subjects for kids who need them and those are twelve or fewer. We also keep our repeater classes (kids who failed Regents) under 12. You will never find an academic class in my school over 29 and 29 is rare. Last year we were 16% free and reduced price lunch, and when kids have small class sizes, lots of support and high expectations they do very well. Below, see her recent letter to the NY Board of Regents, regarding their new proposal to create three different kinds of diplomas: CTE (vocational), regular and STEM. Carol explains: "No matter how you cut it, it is tracking and we have a history of segregated classrooms that resulted from that practice. This is not an argument against CTE programs or STEM programs. This is an argument for preparing all of our children for college and career, and not watering down expectations and hope by forcing kids prematurely down different paths""

"The following is an excerpt of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student's Assessment of School, by 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal, a senior at Syosset High School in Woodbury, New York. Can creativity be taught? Absolutely. The real question is: "How do we teach it?" In school, instead of crossing subjects and classes, we teach them in a very rigid manner. Very rarely do you witness math and science teachers or English and history teachers collaborating with each other. Sticking in your silo, shell, and expertise is comfortable. Well, it's time to crack that shell. It's time to abolish silos and subjects. Joichi Ito, director of the M.I.T. Media Lab, told me that rather than interdisciplinary education, which merges two or more disciplines, we need anti-disciplinary education, a term coined by Sandy Pentland, head of the lab's Human Dynamics group."

This past Thursday, April 26th, the NYC PEP ended 137 years of history at Flushing High School.  A faculty of nearly 200 is now updating their resumes and preparing for interviews and high-performing students are filling out transfer forms to other high schools--they do not believe that the "new school" will be better, as the DOE continuously suggests. Here are some facts that the DOE and PEP have never mentioned during this entire process

...I stopped worrying as much about defending progressive school allies (and the schools to which I had given so many years) from the onslaught, but grew more concerned about the fundamental underpinning of what public'ness means in a democracy. I attributed some of my differences with the foundation/corporate reforms to simply being one of their ignorance about the pace of change possible in an essentially conservative institution with many constituents. I misunderstood. They had their eyes on something different. In the name of equality-and our survival as a nation-they decided we had to get rid of our sentimental attachment to public space, public life, and so much more that we "foolishly" associated with our nation's democratic history. Suddenly I, and others working in "the trenches," were an obstacle to reform! We were blocking the 2lst century, aiding America's enemies, etc. There was indeed a substantial group amongst our founding white fathers who distrusted democracy-deeply. Our opponents' nostalgia goes back in part to those olden days.

In many ways the for-profit edu-corporations and their not-for-profit allies resemble a giant octopus with tentacles reaching into every facet of public education in the United States. I am reminded of the book The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris that detailed the way railroads at the start of the 19th century controlled every facet of business and individual life. There is also a famous political cartoon from 1904 that portrays the Standard Oil monopoly as a giant octopus controlling state and national governments. This giant octopus is strangling public education in both blatant and subtle ways. For example, on the surface the 2000 and 2003 editions of the popular middle school United States history book The American Nation barely differ. Both editions list the publisher as Prentice-Hall in association with American Heritage magazine. However, in the 2003 edition Prentice-Hall was listed as a sub-division of Pearson.

This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. You can celebrate by reaching out to one of your teachers from childhood and telling her how much she meant to you, or by taking your teacher friends to a bar and buying them drinks till they can't see. (As a teacher, I can assure you either would be equally appreciated.) On Web sites created in honor of the week, you can find lists of famous teachers throughout history, gift suggestions and even lesson plans for teachers. My guess, though, is that not many teachers will have the time to offer their students lessons on appreciation. They are too busy preparing for the next round of state standardized tests.

Last year I published A Chance To Make History to share my reflections on what I've learned from our teachers, alumni, and colleagues in urban and rural communities since launching Teach For America twenty years ago. My determination to end educational inequality and optimism that it can be done has only grown stronger over the years as we've seen more examples of what is possible. But my experiences have also deepened my appreciation of the magnitude of the problem and led to a nuanced vision for change. It was disappointing to see the views expressed in the book flagrantly misrepresented in a recent article in the New York Review of Books by Diane Ravitch. I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight and clarify what I believe and don't believe.

Thirty years ago, a Reagan administration report warned of "a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people." The report, "A Nation at Risk," tied that mediocrity to the alleged failure of America's schools. Fast forward to 2012, and the story hasn't changed, former New York City schools chief Joel Klein and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a report provided to The Huffington Post slated to be released Tuesday. "The sad fact is that the rising tide of mediocrity is not something that belongs in history books," said the report produced by a Council on Foreign Relations task force they co-chaired. The report, called the U.S. Education Reform and National Security report, argues for treating education as a national-security issue, noting that deficiencies in areas like foreign languages hold back America's capacity to produce soldiers, diplomats and spies. It calls for increased standards, accountability and school choice -- charter schools and vouchers -- to increase America's international educational standing.

As the poor get poorer, and college tuitions keep rising, the media declare that no one without a B.A. qualifies for a living wage. Something's rotten in this proposition. It isn't that way in Finland, for example. Finland didn't do it overnight, but they built their education system around critical democratic habits: competence and trust. They didn't trade off one for the other. Looking for a trust-proof solution is the fragile error. David Remnick says it well in the March 12th New Yorker: Democracy, he writes: "At best, it's an ambition, a state of becoming," and "the fragility of democratic aspiration is a brutal fact of history." Every time we try an end-run around it we at best distract ourselves from useful next steps, and more often undermine our own aspirations.

Students in Northeast Florida have been offered gift cards, parties, even cars for their performance on the FCAT.  Continuing that long history of incentive programs in the state and Northeast Florida, KIPP Impact Middle School is offering $20 to students who reach specific learning gains scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.  If all of the school's 160 students reach their targets for learning gains, KIPP Impact would pay out about $3,200 in private funds to the students. KIPP Impact, which is a national network of public college preparatory charter schools that targets underprivileged students,  earned the six-county region's lowest FCAT score last year. 

In its report, The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute criticizes local urban governance structures and presents the decentralized, charter-school-driven Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans as a successful model for fiscal and academic performance. Reviewing the report for the Think Twice think tank review project, Kristen Buras of Georgia State University writes that the report ignores the distinctive history of New Orleans and fails to provide evidence for its claims. The review is published by the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.

In The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute criticizes local urban governance structures and presents the decentralized, charter-school-driven Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans as a successful model for fiscal and academic performance. Absent from the review is any consideration of the chronic under-funding and racial history of New Orleans public schools before Hurricane Katrina, and no evidence is provided that a conversion to charter schools would remedy these problems. The report also misreads the achievement data to assert the success of the RSD, when the claimed gains may be simply a function of shifting test standards. The report also touts the replacement of senior teachers with new and non-traditionally prepared teachers, but provides no evidence of the efficacy of this practice. Additionally, the report claims public support for the reforms, but other indicators-never addressed in the report-reveal serious concerns over access, equity, performance, and accountability. Ultimately, the report is a polemic advocating the removal of public governance and the replacement of public schools with privately operated charter networks. It is thin on data and thick on claims, and should be read with great caution by policymakers in Ohio and elsewhere.

Suspicious test scores in roughly 200 school districts resemble those that entangled Atlanta in the biggest cheating scandal in American history, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. The newspaper analyzed test results for 69,000 public schools and found high concentrations of suspect math or reading scores in school systems from coast to coast. The findings represent an unprecedented examination of the integrity of school testing. The analysis doesn't prove cheating. But it reveals that test scores in hundreds of cities followed a pattern that, in Atlanta, indicated cheating in multiple schools.

There comes a time when you look at the rug on the floor, the one you've seen many times, and you see a pattern that you had never noticed before. You may have seen this squiggle or that flower, but you did not see the pattern into which the squiggles and flowers and trails of ivy combined. In American education, we can now discern the pattern on the rug. Consider the budget cuts to schools in the past four years. From the budget cuts come layoffs, rising class sizes, less time for the arts and physical education, less time for history, civics, foreign languages, and other non-tested subjects. Add on the mandates of No Child Left Behind, which demands 100 percent proficiency in math and reading and stigmatizes more than half the public schools in the nation as "failing" for not reaching an unattainable goal. Along comes the Obama administration with the Race to the Top, and the pattern on the rug gets clearer.

In advancing some interests, foundations have inevitably not advanced others. Hence, their actions must have political consequences, even when political purposes are not avowed or even intended. To avoid politics in dealing with foundation history is to miss a crucial part of the story. -Ellen Lagemann, Private Power for the Public Good When Microsoft magnate Bill Gates decided a decade ago that the "solution" to what he saw as America's failing school systems was an expansion of smaller schools, he started writing checks, a whole lot of checks, totaling more than $2 billion.   Gates is not the only billionaire who has decided to make education reform one of his pet projects. Los Angeles-based developer Eli Broad, the mega-rich Walton family (founders of Walmart) and other philanthropists currently give some $4 billion a year in contributions to education. But these handouts are hardly purely philanthropic. They come tied with policy strings and a well-defined agenda. While not the only donors, Gates, Broad and the Waltons have emerged as the highest-profile deep-pocket benefactors of what has become a nationwide education reform movement.