Susan Ohanian's email from this week merits reproduction here. If you haven't signed the petition, please do so right away.
I've spent the entire week—dawn to midnight— pestering people about the White House petition: My message is not quite 'Sign or die.' But close.
As I mention in 'White House Petition to Stop Data Obscenity,' I'm not so naive as to 'believe' in petitions… particularly petitions to politicos. I started this one to the White House hoping to get media attention. I also started it as a first step for teachers not yet willing to take to the streets to DO something besides whine. But the numbers are showing that never mind take to the streets; teachers won't even take to putting two initials on a petition.
I'm very discouraged.
Also very angry. I think I've run out of excuses. I don't mean to be insufferable here, but teachers desperately need to figure out the difference between whining and resisting.
As the authors of 'Digital Ocean proclaim, 'Assessment is ultimately about gathering evidence to support claims we wish to make about learners.'
And to support claims they wish to make about teachers, too. All that standardized testing is very much to support claims Bill Gates, the Business Roundtable, et al want to make about teachers.
You should read Digital Ocean—brought to you by Pearson. They say part of the paper is 'aspirational.' Be warned about what THEY wish for and keep a barf bag nearby: http://tinyurl.com/nvbc78w
The bibliography includes a reference to the Journal of Educational Data Mining.
Eggplant is back, as well as some other noteworthy items—such as the police coming to a Colorado house over a threatened opt-out-of-test.
No comments:
Post a Comment