A Parent Reviews “Reign of Error”
Dienne Anum, a regular commenter on this blog, reviewed “Reign of Error.”
She is a parent of two. As I have often said and written, parents are the sleeping giants. Once they become informed and energized, we are unstoppable in reclaiming our schools and improving education.
Dienne writes:
Reform or Deform?
Diane Ravitch has done it again. Starting where DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM left off, REIGN OF ERROR documents the hoax that is being perpetrated against the American people by corporate privatizers looking to profit off education by convincing Americans that public schools are “failing” and that the only solution is to turn education over to private providers through charter “public” schools, government-paid vouchers for private schools, and/or virtual on-line academies.
But as Diane thoroughly documents, these methods don’t improve education, they only eliminate oversight over public funds. Furthermore – and worse – the privatization…
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“Today is Thanksgiving. Wish I could be there.” (November 28, 2003)
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Over 400 Retailers Are Offering Deals On New “Bitcoin Black Friday” Website
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An army of robot baristas could mean the end of Starbucks as we know it
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The Meaning of “Personalized” Learning
All too often these days, we hear certain buzz words: “personalized learning,” “individualized learning,” “customized learning.” Usually they are used all together, as in “personalized, individualized, customized learning.”
Buyer beware! What these words usually signify is that some corporation is selling a computerized learning program with pre-set questions and answers. The students will click through the questions to find out at what step they are on, until they reach the point where they get the wrong answer. Then the computer will respond with a pre-set instruction about what to do next.
Like everything else in the faux-reform vocabulary, this is the opposite of what is meant by personalized, customized, and individualized. This is mechanized teaching, with nothing individual, personalized, or custom about it. At bottom, the goal is to sell stuff to schools and make money. The hope: computers will replace teachers, won’t ever get a pension or a raise…
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Handwritten Stories in a Digital Age: PostSecret.com and More
In our digital age, we interact with new technologies each day, yet some of us also pine for the past: we cherish handwritten things and value — even fetishize — physical objects. Posts like “Diaries and Connections to the Past” and “Found Objects and Books” reveal a collective nostalgia.
Consider a diary hidden in a shoebox. Postcards from your best friend, traveling around the world. Or a stack of letters from a secret lover. We view messages crafted by hand as more personal and meaningful — check out Cristina Vanko’s handwritten texts as modern-day snail mail. Words from our pens stand the test of time, and are viewed as more intimate — and meant to be shared and carefully considered by you, the reader.
PostSecret: Now on WordPress.com
We’re happy to announce that PostSecret, founded by Frank Warren, has made its home on WordPress.com as one of our newest
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Anthony Cody: Common Core and RoboGrading
Anthony Cody wonders in this post whether the Common Core standards are designed to facilitate computer grading of student essays.
Cody includes a commentary by Alice Mercer, who describes a writing task on the Common Core test. She reaches the startling conclusion that the standards were written to accommodate computer testing, which explains the limitation on background knowledge.
She writes:
“Even if my assertion that the standards were written to accommodate testing, and more specifically machine scoring of writing are wrong, these are still lousy tasks that are very low-level and not “rigorous” or cognitively demanding.”
Cody, reflecting on Mercer’s observations, writes:
“This reveals one of our basic fears as educators and parents about the Common Core and associated tests. The project is an attempt to align and standardize instruction and assessment on an unprecedented scale. The future, according to the technocrats who have designed these systems, involves computer-based curriculum…
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