High-Stakes Testing, Uncertainty, and Student Learning
Audrey Amrein and David Berliner, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesMarch 28, 2002
Audrey Amrein and David Berliner, Education Policy Analysis ArchivesMarch 28, 2002
Frederick M. Hess2002
For charter schools in Chicago, accountability is simple: you don't perform, you don't survive. Last week, the city's charter czar shut down Nuestra America Charter School, where test scores had plummeted, as had attendance. But an editorial in The Chicago Tribune argues that the school's involuntary closure demonstrates how well the charter model works.
Americans tend to feel warm, proud, and a mite smug when they hear the phrase "Head Start." Aside from Social Security, it's the most beloved of all federal domestic programs. But no complacency is warranted. Head Start is one of those swell ideas from the 1960's that urgently needs reforming for the 21st Century.
In Chicago, the teachers' union is creating a graduate program in teacher leadership aimed at making teachers "agents of change." Teachers who earn the two-year degree will be eligible for a $6,000 pay hike.
The California Teachers' Union is receiving a lot of press lately-most of it bad-for its forceful effort to expand the scope of collective bargaining in the state to include matters of curriculum and instruction. There is much pushback, including hostile editorials in every major newspaper in the state.