In Los Angeles bad news for Roy Romer’s critics, good news for everyone else.
George Will takes a break from attacking John Kerry to write about reading and the recent National Endowment for the Arts reading study.
The Department of Education takes a break from needlessly complicating No Child Left Behind implementation to host some useful conferences for teachers. Reports LA Times:
Several teachers, such as Mission Viejo biology teacher Jim Sink, welcomed the reminder that beneath all the policy debate about No Child, the law is “just a title on a concept, and the concept is kids learning.
“When the law was dumped on our doorstep, there wasn’t any detailed explanation about what it means,” Sink said. “Not all my students [succeed]. And these workshops have given me some ideas on how to help them.”
But teacher unions were dismissive of the summer tour. Daniel Kaufman, a spokesman for the National Education Assn., said the workshops did nothing to address the union’s concerns about insufficient funding, strict wording on teacher credentials and rigid demands on student testing.
Libertarian voucher advocate Casey Lartigue Jr. writes about various academics he encountered at Harvard as he was testing out his political philosophy during his undergraduate years. He liked Al Shanker a lot but says Gary Orfield shouted at him that, “I was the “kind of black person who turns his back on other blacks.””
If you’re following NCLB implementation, keep an eye on this.
Sorta new data on the new GED, fewer students taking it, more passing. Via educationnews.org.