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Continue reading →: Master of Myth: What Arne Duncan Says and Does
Master of Myth: What Arne Duncan Says and Does The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. —John F. Kennedy U.S. Secretary of Education has been called the most powerful education secretary in…
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Continue reading →: NBC Hosting Education Summit: Can we stop bashing education?
NBC News is convening an education summit in September. “The two-day ‘Education Nation’ event in New York will be carried online, and is part of a week of programming concentrating on education issues on NBC News broadcasts such as “Today” and “Nightly News,” and the MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo TV…
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Continue reading →: What are high, really high, test scores worth: Competition among Schools in China
The advantages of academic excellence are clear and substantial. Securing a top score not only grants you admission to the most prestigious and competitive high school at no cost, but it also entitles you to a generous signing bonus, often in the thousands of RMB. Furthermore, as an additional perk,…
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Continue reading →: Mass Localism: How Might the Race to the Top Money Be Better Spent?
“It has turned a relatively modest federal program (the $4.3 billion budget represents less than 1 percent of all federal, state and local education spending) into high-yield leverage that could end up overshadowing health care reform in its impact and that is already upending traditional Democratic Party politics,” writes Steven…
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Continue reading →: A Pretense of Science and Objectivity: Data and Race to the Top
Education has a new god: data. It is believed to have the power to save American education and thus everything in education must be about data—collect more data about our children, evaluate teachers and administrators based on data, and reward and punish schools using data. The US federal government has…
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Continue reading →: Just in case you have not read, seen, or heard: a few links you may be interested in
#1: In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, education historian Diane Ravitch discusses: What could be wrong with promoting charter schools to compete with public schools? Why shouldn’t we demand accountability from educators and use test scores to reward our best teachers and identify those who should find…
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Continue reading →: A Discussion on China’s Recent Education Reform on CCTV 9
When I was in China recently, I was asked to commend on China’s new education reform plan on China’s national TV network (China Central TV — or CCTV). The program is in English. While there are manly proposed reform measures, one of the most significant is reform on college admissions,…
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Continue reading →: Does the U.S. Want what China Wants to Throw Away: The Role of Testing in Two National Education Reform Plans
In front of me are two documents that could significantly affect the future of the world. I am not exaggerating because these two documents are plans to overhaul education in two of the most powerful nations in the world: China and the United States. If the plans are executed as…
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Continue reading →: Spring is Here(?): The New National Educational Technology Plan
I have been reading the new National Educational Technology Plan released (NETP) on March 5, 2010. The plan lays out such a revolutionary model of learning that I wonder if it has gone through the sanctions of the U.S. Department of Education or perhaps this signals a change in the…
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Continue reading →: Education Interfering with Instruction?
I was in Cape Town, South Africa to attend the 6th iNET (International Networking for Educational Transformation) conference last week. The conference theme this year is Equity and Excellence for All, a topic that has global appeal because every society is struggling to provide an excellent education for all students.…












