I have a new column up at The74 today arguing that the threat of tough school accountability has always been much worse than the reality. Unfortunately, the false veneer of accountability can still come with all the media and political backlash as if it were the real thing.
Why do so few kids walk or bike to school in some states? Alex Spurrier looks at the data.
There’s been a lot of attention in our world to the decline in enrollment in teacher preparation programs, but did you know it was part of a larger trend? The Washington Post dives into the numbers:
A great migration is happening on U.S. college campuses. Ever since the fall of 2008, a lot of students have walked out of English and humanities lectures and into STEM classes, especially computer science and engineering.
English majors are down more than a quarter (25.5 percent) since the Great Recession, according to data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. It’s the biggest drop for any major tracked by the center in its annual data and is quite startling, given that college enrollment has jumped in the past decade.
–Guest post by Chad Aldeman
Threat of school accountability is worse than nothing at all. Great point.
Also true of:
1. Teacher accountability.
2. Top Down “instructional leadership” in schools with no accountability (i.e., district-chosen curric, PD, ed tech). Just enough to block good teachers from making better choices; not enough to improve bad teachers who will resist/dilute.