Three from Schools Matter

Jim Horn and his colleagues at Schools Matter have three great items worth looking at.

Tennessee Teachers Will Evaluate Legislators Who Approved Ridiculous Teacher Eval Scheme

How great would it be to use a form like this to evaluate our legislators? John Kuhn, Superintendent of Perrin, Texas schools suggested that we label lawmakers. This looks like a way to do just that. Here's a tool for evaluating those who know nothing about education and who sit in state and federal legislatures making laws for public schools.

New Charter Study by Mathematica With More Bad News for Corporate Ed Reform

Arne Duncan and the Obama administration at the federal level...Tony Bennett and the Daniels administration at the state (Indiana) level, and all the other state executives who are pushing to destroy public education through attacks on teachers, increased charter schools, and, at the state levels, increased vouchers for private and religious schools, should check out this latest study on the efficacy of charter schools.

...even with all the advantages that charter schools enjoy, and even with the selective culling that took place to create the sample for this study, charters are, on average, doing no better than the public schools that the charterites want to shut down.

To improve reading in California: Let’s try the obvious

And finally, Stephen Krashen provides information about how trading libraries (school and public) for standardized tests won't improve reading skills.

The plan now is to invest in standards and tests, despite research showing that increasing standardized testing does not increase school achievement. Why do we insist on spending money on weighing the animal rather than feeding it? Why this reluctance to even consider the idea of investing more in our public and school libraries?