by David Safier I haven't written about Imagine Schools for awhile. They're a huge, nationwide, for-profit corporation with over a dozen schools in Arizona. They've also been plagued with problems, which have gotten lots of press nationwide. I have a huge folder filled with articles about Imagine Schools problems from around the country, but few … Read more
by David Safier Let's see. Put enormous pressure on teachers to have their students score well on high stakes tests. Tell them their salary levels and their jobs are at stake. What might happen? Oh, maybe some teachers will fudge their students' scores a little bit. Investigators say more than 100 educators should face scrutiny … Read more
by David Safier You've probably heard the distressing statistic that says boosts in children's achievement due to excellent preschool and kindergarten experiences fade over the next few years. From what I know, that's true when you measure achievement by test scores. But here's a much more encouraging statistic. Regardless of that well-known "fade-out effect," children … Read more
by David Safier Call this a red letter day. I'm going to quote something written by one of the high paid folks at the Goldwater Institute as a source, rather than ripping it to shreds. Byron Schlomach, director of G.I.'s Center for Economic Prosperity (Don't you love the straight-out-of-"1984" name of the Center?), says we're … Read more
by David Safier Standardized tests are fine, so long as the results are kept in perspective. But when they're made the gold standard for assessing student achievement, things get weird, and measurements of achievement become badly skewed. Here's one of the many problems with high stakes tests. If motivated test takers do better than an … Read more