To be considered “proficient,” Illinois juniors will have to “earn a higher score on the SAT than the one that’s correlated with college readiness,” writes Catherine Gewertz in Ed Week. The state board of education’s policy doesn’t affect students’ grades or graduation, she explains. But their high schools will lose points in the new accountability system if 11th graders score below 540 in English or… Read more →
“All throughout high school, they made it sound like going to college was our only option,” says Derrick Roberson, a 17-year-old high school graduate in southern California. Vocational classes were seen as second-class. But he had doubts. “After you go to college, where do you go? It can open doors for you, but not as much as they make it… Read more →
Last week, I wrote broadly about Illinois’ new accountability plan, where the goals promised “a focus on equity and excellence for all students” but where the details appear to fall far, far short of that. Understanding this plan is not yet cast in stone, let’s look at one area where Illinois seeks to break new ground but only clears a… Read more →
Ninety percent of parents believe their children are performing at “grade level” or higher in their schoolwork, according to a Learning Heroes survey this spring. Yet only about a third of high school graduates are ready for college-level courses, writes Fordham’s Mike Petrilli in Education Next. Ignorance isn’t bliss, he argues. If students and their parents knew they weren’t on track… Read more →
When I published a commentary in my local newspaper a few years ago entitled “Why Do Our Public Schools Never Improve?” the comments posted by readers suggested that questioning the performance of our nation’s schools means one thing: I must be a right-wing ideologue in thrall to our corporate overlords. I certainly understood the negative reactions. Questioning the comfortable status quo never… Read more →