Roy F. McCampbell's Blog

This post was written by Don Batt, an English teacher in Colorado:

There is a monster waiting for your children in the spring. Its creators have fashioned it so that however children may prepare for it, they will be undone by its clever industry.
The children know it’s coming. They have encountered it every year since third grade, and every year it has taken parts of their souls. Not just in the spring. Everyday in class, the children are asked which answer is right although the smarter children realize that sometimes there are parts of several answers that could be right.

And they sit. And they write.

Not to express their understanding of the world. Or to even form their own opinions about ideas they have read. Instead, they must dance the steps that they have been told are important: first, build your writing with a certain number of…

When I heard about this, I thought it was a joke: The Gates Foundation is investing in the development of a urine-powered cellphone.

Frankly, I have always harbored a secret wish that someone would develop a urine-powered engine for automobiles. No one would ever run out of fuel. Now, that would be a wonderful idea and would provide an endless supply of sustainable energy forever!

But a urine-powered cellphone?

Who would have thought of that?

It does make more sense to invest in a urine-powered cellphone than to spend hundreds of millions to persuade school districts to evaluate teachers based on test scores. That dog of an idea went nowhere. It led to false positives, to high error rates, to narrowing the curriculum, cheating, and endless test prep as the stakes got higher and higher.

Last year, the Gates Foundation issued a challenge to reinvent the toilet of the future.

Mercedes Schneider has been keeping track of the states where there is significant opposition to Common Core standards and/or testing.

Initially, she identified 22 states where Common Core has encountered opposition.

After that post appeared, she learned that California should be added to the list, for a total of 23 states where critics are rallying against the CCSS.

Last month, Boston voters elected a new Mayor, arguably with a little help from a mysterious political action committee that dumped $480,000 into the campaign during its final days. One Boston confirmed to the Boston Globe this week that the American Federation of Teachers funded the group’s efforts to swing the race in favor of Mayor-elect Marty Walsh. Walsh denies knowing a thing about it.