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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....
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Joanne Jacobs
May 15, 20182 min read
How to motivate students
Many believe “extrinsic” motivators, such as incentives, “decrease student effort by eroding students’ intrinsic desire to learn,” they...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 27, 20181 min read
Remember when every kid counted?
all their students made the grade — not just some of them, not just the White ones and the middle-class ones.” Under No Child Left Behind...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 27, 20181 min read
Test scores don’t predict life outcomes
How do we measure a school’s success? School of choice that raise reading and math scores don’t always improve later outcomes, such as...
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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...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 27, 20182 min read
What’s proficient? It’s every state for itself
Once upon a time, 45 states adopted Common Core standards and exams — either the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 16, 20181 min read
Requiring the impossible leads to fraud
Washington, D.C. public schools were held up as a model of “expert driven” education reform, writes Max C. Eden and Lindsey Burke on...
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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...
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Joanne Jacobs
Dec 19, 20172 min read
Fudging graduation and now college-going rates
Federal education law encourage schools to fudge graduation rates, writes Laura Jimenez, director of standards and accountability for the...
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Joanne Jacobs
Dec 8, 20172 min read
Why test scores matter
Standardized test scores matter, writes Ryan Williams-Virden, dean of students at Minneapolis’ Hiawatha Collegiate High School, on...
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Joanne Jacobs
Nov 16, 20172 min read
Orange is the new red
Orange is the new red for California schools, writes New America’s Conor Williams in The 74. Twice as many schools fell in the bottom...
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Joanne Jacobs
Sep 1, 20171 min read
Here’s how schools inflate grad rates
Public school officials are “using fraudulent methods to inflate graduation rates,” writes Bernard Gassaway in Education Week. He saw it...
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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...
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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...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 11, 20171 min read
Wisconsin governor: Let schools set class time
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s state budget plan lets schools set their own days and hours of instruction, reports the Milwaukee...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 31, 20171 min read
Is there a future for test-based accountability?
Is Test-Based Accountability Dead? asks Education Next. Since No Child Left Behind passed in 2001, holding schools accountable for their...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 21, 20172 min read
California adopts ‘rosy’ school ratings
After three years without a school accountability system, California Superintendent Tom Torlakson lauded the California School Dashboard...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 20, 20171 min read
‘Dashboards’ replace A-F school grades
It’s getting harder to hold schools accountable for performance writes Lane Wright on Education Post. The Education Department’s new ESSA...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20172 min read
How high schools hide dropouts
High schools are inflating graduation rates and test scores by steering low achievers to alternative schools, reports ProPublica and USA...
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