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""The whole NCLB era, and really back to the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the 1960s, was about getting kids to grade level, to minimal proficiency," says Peters. "There seems to be a change in belief now - that you need to show growth in every student.""

"By "standards … effectiveness … accountability," what Rhee means, of course, is more emphasis on her reform agenda of assessing schools, teachers and students with high-stakes test scores - not at all an agenda uniformly accepted by top-scoring nations. Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg corrected her on a blog site at the Washington Post, noting that Finland's PISA scores are routinely at or near the top, yet "the Finnish approach to educational policy has stood in direct opposition to the path embraced by the United States.""

"We continue to struggle with all this testing madness in the US - and we're doing our best (along with that education behemoth Pearson - thanks Britain!) to export this madness worldwide. Education and empire - some things never change do they."

"A POLITICO investigation has found that Pearson stands to make tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and cuts in student tuition from deals arranged without competitive bids in states from Florida to Texas. The review also found Pearson's contracts set forth specific performance targets - but don't penalize the company when it fails to meet those standards. And in the higher ed realm, the contracts give Pearson extensive access to personal student data, with few constraints on how it is used."