Joanne Jacobs
Testing basic skills leads to two-tier system
Schools serving mainly poor and minority students end up teaching the basic skills and schools serving more advantaged students, knowing...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jul 30, 20182 min read
Show me the test scores
You want my kids to go to your schools? Show me they’re learning, writes Citizen Stewart in a defense of test-based accountability....
Joanne Jacobs
Jul 11, 20182 min read
More states rely on robo-graders for essay tests
Pearson’s “automated scoring program graded some 34 million student essays on state and national high-stakes tests last year,” she...
Joanne Jacobs
May 31, 20182 min read
22% of Pomona students are ‘disabled’
classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety,” reports Douglas Belkin in the Wall Street...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 15, 20182 min read
We’re teaching reading wrong
We’re teaching reading wrong, writes Natalie Wexler in The Atlantic. U.S. schools spend a lot of time on reading skills in the early...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 10, 20182 min read
Nation’s report card shows ‘lost decade’
Reading and math proficiency isn’t improving for fourth- and eighth-graders, according to the 2017 National Assessment of Education...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20182 min read
SAT/ACT may replace state test in California
California may let schools replace 11th-grade Smarter Balanced tests with the SAT or ACT, reports CALmatters’ Felicia Mello. That might...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 12, 20181 min read
Who’s college ready? Let’s find out
States vow to graduate students who are college- and career-ready but have no idea if they’re succeeding, writes Checker Finn. The...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 23, 20181 min read
To get to equity, teach ’em to read
Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality is tired of apologizing for her “narrow-minded” focus on academic goals as the way...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 28, 20172 min read
Atlanta’s cheated students
Ten years later after the Atlanta cheating scandal broke, “educators continue to fight to clear their names and the district attempts to...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 27, 20171 min read
Testing empowers parents
Testing enables social justice, argues Keri Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Massachusetts Parents United in CommonWealth Magazine. Minority...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 7, 20172 min read
If at first you fail the test …
When students are allowed to retake tests for a better grade, what do they learn? Julie Scagell, a Minnesota mother, wonders if her...
Joanne Jacobs
Aug 13, 20171 min read
Testing pushes weakest teachers to K-2
How should an elementary school deploy its best teachers? Many would argue that first grade is the most critical grade — or maybe...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 20, 20172 min read
Indiana: Private schools test for vouchers
Indiana’s private schools now “live or die by test scores,” reports Dylan Peers McCoy for Chalkbeat. If schools don’t score well enough...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 23, 20171 min read
Work, study, dream — and stay poor
Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. Photo: Linda Lutton/WBEZ “School is what makes the American Dream possible,” writes WBEZ reporter...
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