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Shouldn’t our real goal be to increase intellectual engagement so that we are developing kids with a love or learning?  And if we are really targeting academic engagement, what about our socially engaged learners who are on the bubble and considering dropping out of school?

The Common Core places an extraordinary emphasis on vocabulary development

Teachers are engaged in practices like these because they are pressured and afraid, not because they think the assessments are educationally sound. Their principals are pressured and nervous about their own scores and the school’s scores. Guaranteed, every child in the class feels that pressure and trepidation as well.

I am troubled that a company that has a multi-million dollar contract to create tests for the state should also be able to profit from producing test prep materials. I am even more deeply troubled that this wonderful little girl, whom I have known since she was born, is being subject to this distortion of what her primary education should be.

When all is said and done, kindergarteners will have spent up to 60 days of class time—or a third of the school year—taking various standardized tests. And you wonder why so many wealthy people send their children to private schools.

to hold teachers accountable for how much their students learn—or at least how well they score on standardized tests, which is not always the same thing. But the idea is that high-scoring "good" teachers will keep their jobs and low-scoring "bad" teachers will be fired, presumably to be replaced by the thousands of "good" teachers eager to come to Illinois to give more tests.

"Most of the kids just look at me," says another kindergarten teacher who asked not to be identified. "They're five. They don't what a 'main character' means."

"We already have a guitar. I can learn on my own and with my friends." Me: "It seems like you should get lessons for the basics." Her: "Mom, that's what the Internet is for." It turns out she's already been practicing with the help of YouTube tutorials.

because of the abundance of knowledge and social connections

balancing the competitive pressures of college-readiness, the need for unstructured learning and socializing, and the role of the Internet in all of that

The people who don’t benefit from spelling tests are those who are poor at spelling. They struggled with spelling before the test, and they still struggle after the test. Testing is not teaching.

Are all children learning to love words from their very first years at school?

Speaking these words can be a way to commiserate with colleagues, or they can become “in jokes” among friends.  These exchanges can be OK when we are face-to-face with others, as we have body language and voice inflections to help us understand the meaning and context behind the statements.  Online is a different situation, however.

Suddenly my Twitter stream was a teacher’s lounge.

if we have an online presence, we must be responsible in what we say or write.  This seems simple, doesn’t it?  Nevertheless, we forget that we are not in the company of friends when we say or write the things we do.  Almost anyone can read our words, and they might misunderstand our intent.