2008 February 12 Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Caught Being Good

Mike Huckabee
No matter what you think of his politics, the candidate refuses to dumb down his use of allusions in his stump speeches. Not sure what he meant? Look it up!

NYC Students Blog
The first ever student-run blog about the NYC education system. The future is in good hands.

Names on the Blackboard

Charles Darwin
Will Florida’s new science standards be scuttled by the inclusion of evolution?

Zero
Fifty is the new zero. Warning: Slippery slope ahead!

Name on the Blackboard…with Checkmarks

Miami-Dade County School Board
Superintendent Rudy Crew and his staff are exploring the possibility of allowing captive-audience advertising in schools as a possible stream of revenue for the cash-strapped district.

Great instruction and a strong curriculum is the best test prep, right? And research shows “drill and kill” doesn’t work? But look inside a struggling school and you see, well, lots of test prep. “Schools Turn Focus to the Big Picture,” an article from the Baton Rouge Advocate, looks uncritically at Roseland Elementary, which includes “some of Tangipahoa Parish’s poorest students and is one of its lowest performing schools on state accountability measures.” Note that no attempt is made to downplay or hide the big test prep push that’s going on. Indeed, the piece seems to assume that this is what schools are supposed to do. Perhaps school officials do too, since the “big picture” of the title refers to the school’s strenuous test prep effort—the announced “40 Days of Focus,” described as “an intense time of preparation for the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program tests for fourth- and eighth-graders and other tests given in March.”