Weekend reads: The mediocre voice missing from education reform debates

  • One viewpoint remains almost entirely absent from the conversation around how to improve education: that of people who weren’t always good at school. (U.S. News and World Report)
  • At a Brooklyn school, a computer system orchestrates how math class will unfold each day based on results from daily tests that students take to measure their progress. (Hechinger Report)
  • Teachers who are tired of seeing education policy being driven by non-educators are looking more to teacher leadership programs as a way to amplify their voices. (EdWeek)
  • A satirical report on the standards movement gone off the rails: A single (four-hour) test for every K-12 student in the country. (The Onion)
  • One major obstacle to closing the word gap for low-income students: many early childhood educators are also at risk for functional illiteracy. (Answer Sheet)
  • A Wisconsin teachers union leader argues that unions need to redefine their mission beyond a traditional trade union model to one that more broadly reflects the needs of their communities. (Rethinking Schools via Answer Sheet)
  • A former college admissions officer advises parents to relax about what college their student might be admitted to and instead focus on evidence of their self-motivation and accountability. (Rox and Roll via Grade Point)
  • An ed tech company called Instructure has raised $40 million in advance of an anticipated public offering and wants to take on one of the industry’s behemoths, Blackboard. (Buzzfeed)
  • Why Oklahoma legislators — like some Colorado school board members before them — want to scrap Advanced Placement United States History courses. (NYMag)