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Continue reading →: If Lady Gaga Can be Useful…
If Lady Gaga Can be Useful Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is no doubt one of the most successful global super stars. She has over 13 millions twitter followers and 40 million Facebook fans. Her YouTube video “Bad Romance” has accrued over 411 million views and…
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Continue reading →: Ditch Testing (Part 5): Testing Has Not Improved Education Despite all the Costs
Ditch Testing (Part 5): Testing Has Not Improved Education The evidence is clear. Test-score cheating is not isolated to Atlanta, Baltimore, and a few other schools, as testing proponents tend to suggest. It is not a problem that can be fixed with technical measures such as tightened security. It may…
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Continue reading →: Ditch Testing (Part 4): Test Security Measures in China
“The answer here is very simple, you just have a culture of integrity and you have better security measures in place,” said Secretary Arne Duncan in response to the Atlanta cheating scandal. Other testing proponents offered similar suggestions. “A culture of integrity” is not easy because of the corruptive power…
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Continue reading →: Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Atlanta Scandal (Part 3): Human Nature?
Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Atlanta Scandal (Part 3): No Technical Fix: Human Nature? Chester E. Finn says cheating on test scores “is about human nature.” Assuming cheating is human nature, then it would be logical to accept one of two assumptions: a) everyone cheats or has the tendency to cheat…
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Continue reading →: Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Atlanta Cheating Scandal (Part 2): Not An Anomaly
Not an Anomaly: Systemic Ills Caused by Test-based Accountability Policies Secretary Duncan is not the only who tries to minimize the scale of the problem and reduce it to a technical issue. Chester E. Finn, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.…
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Continue reading →: Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Cheating Scandal in Atlanta (Part 1)
Ditch Testing: Lessons from the Cheating Scandal in Atlanta (Part 1) Last week a state investigation in Georgia confirmed massive cheating in Atlanta Public Schools. A total of 178 educators in 44 elementary and middle schools in the district were named in the report as participants in cheating on the…
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Continue reading →: Can you be globally competitive by closing your doors and raising test scores?
Can you be globally competitive by closing your doors and raising test scores? “Can America be globally competitive by closing its doors and raising test scores in math and reading?” asked an educator from the Netherlands at an international education conference recently. The question was directed at a speaker from…
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Continue reading →: Race to Self Destruction: A History Lesson for Education Reformers
Race to the Top, Obama Administration’s $4.35 billion education initiative, has been touted many times by the President and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as “the most meaningful education reform in a generation”. It is also been proposed as the blueprint for the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and…
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Continue reading →: A Nation At Risk: Edited by Yong Zhao
A Nation At Risk – April 1983 Edited by Yong Zhao, March, 2011 Next month marks the 28th anniversary of the publication of A Nation At Risk, one of the most influential education documents in the US history. As an English language learner, I have always been impressed with the…
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Continue reading →: A Bold Education Experiment: What We Should Learn From China
A Bold Education Experiment: What We Should Learn From China World’s longest high-speed rail networks, fastest trains, fastest computer, second largest economy, and #1 standing in international tests are just more recent evidence many outside observers cite to show why the rest of the world should learn from China’s education…












