Yesterday I was flying home from a brief vacation in the Sunshine State. While waiting for our plane to depart, a young woman across the aisle was making a last minute call. She spoke in Russian. At the end of the flight we had a brief conversation and she spoke in flawless English. I was reminded once again of something I continue to regret that I have never reached fluency in a second language. As an American I am not alone of course. Three years of Latin and two years of French met my academic requirements, but little else. (more…)

One of the recurring themes in the contemporary discussions of education reform is the notion of “21st century skills”. What is not always so clear is exactly what these skills are. I think that most of us who have been around for a while would readily admit that our lives have become increasingly complex. For some this complexity is overwhelming, for others empowering, but few can deny that technology, telecommunications, and globalization alone have drastically changed our lives. (more…)

It is very encouraging to see the emergence of a dialogue on this most important topic. I am sure there will be divergent points of view, but I am confident that we can have a conversation respectful of differences of opinion, and ultimately, in some cases, simply agree to disagree. (more…)

The vast majority of educators and increasing percentages of the public have serious misgivings about the federal law and the focus of their discomfort is usually around testing and the judgments the law imposes based on a single test. There is another broader and perhaps even more important issue that worries me even more. Two comments from two very different educators captured it for me and if I were issuing “profiles in courage” they would each be contenders. (more…)

Check out this satirical video written and performed by Tom Chapin You can read about Tom at his website www.notonthetest.com Thanks to Public Education Network’s NewsBlast for bringing this site to my attention.

After six years of of an ever widening circle of chaos caused primarily by the flawed premise in No Child Left Behind that “one size fits all”, last week Secretary Spellings announced that the department was ready to acknowledge that a more “nuanced” approach to accountability might be beneficial particularly to those schools most in need. I don’t mean to sound cynical - well actually I do - they deserve our cynicism. Here is an example of their heightened sense of the obvious: “After six years of NCLB implementation, we have data illustrating that the extent of the academic achievement problems leading to a school’s identification differ widely within states.” (see Fact Sheet issued last week) They go on to acknowledge that some states and districts have “a large percentage of their schools identified, impacting capacity to provide meaningful, intensive reforms.” (more…)

Reading through the comments on this earlier post it is clear that many teachers and parents are troubled by distortions that are caused by a disproportionate focus on standardized testing. Several comments point out rightfully that I failed to mention the CAPT testing as well. I should have. Issues related to the amount of time taken away by the testing program were raised in a number of comments. In the high school, Ellen pointed out, even the students who are not tested in her school are losing two hours a day for two weeks because the length of classes are truncated. And then the issue of students with special needs and those students in alternative programs - students who simply are not able to perform well on tests - was raised in a number of thoughtful comments. Several teachers indicated that morale has never been lower and that it is increasingly difficult to derive joy from their work. This is something that I have heard increasingly from teachers and does not bode well for the future. The good news is that we have the beginnings of a much-needed dialogue. Keep the comments coming.

A central theme of education reform in the NCLB era has been incentives, and particularly with No Child Left Behind the incentives have been negative - improve or else suffer the consequences. Most educators know, if not through instinct then through experience, that negative incentives do not improve learning in anything but the shortest of terms. Given this it should not be surprising that the the vast majority of educators see this as a major shortcoming in the federal law. (more…)

This is CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) time in Connecticut. Every K-8 teacher, every parent of a K-8 student knows that this is a very intense period. The testing, traditionally conducted in the fall, has been shifted to the spring to meet the requirements of NCLB. I wonder what effect this has had on the run-up to the test—the period of intense test preparation that precedes the test. (more…)

My name is Bob Murphy. I recently retired from full time employment near the close of my fourth decade in public education as a teacher and an advocate. For the last eleven years, I have been employed by the Connecticut Education Association most recently as Director of Policy and Professional Practice. CEA has asked me to assist in starting up this blog, which I am happy to do. The time is right for this conversation. (more…)