Ze'ev Wurman was one of my favorite colleagues at the US Department of Education, a kind, worldly, and smart guy. But he also had a trait that lots of similarly kind, worldly, and smart folks lack: he does details.
He read--carefully at that--voluminous documents coming out of our research shop to ensure rigor in research, clarity in writing, and accessibility in findings. In a world full of executive summary readers, Ze'ev checks footnotes.
So I was happy to see his new report, co-authored with Sandra Stotsky, on the common standards effort. They cast a critical eye on what they see and provide some meaningful examples. Mickey reviews it here.
Common standards are all the rage right now, and there's lots of money behind them. That can be a dangerous formula in education policy-making, where the new often trumps the wise. I'm happy there are folks like Ze'ev out there digging into the details.
--Andy Smarick