Myth #2: Private Schools are better than Public Schools  by Berliner and Glass  in 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools

Once having accounted for the enrollment of higher-SES students in private schools, and considering other variables such as race/ethnicity and disability status, Chris Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski found that public school students on average outperformed their peers in private schools. Check out their book: The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools.

 

Red Flags on the Road to Common Core State Standards Reform

In too many cases, there is little appreciation that the final, decisive implementation step is teachers planning, trying out, and revising new lessons. Week by week, in small incremental steps, change comes. Often progress is uneven, slower than anticipated, and runs afoul of "hurry-up" pressures that kill reforms before they are ever fully implemented. Evidence is mounting that incremental improvement is the best way to get lasting results -- in medicine, teaching, and industry. 

Washington State legislators refused to accept Arne Duncan's demand that teachers be evaluated by a flawed and erroneous method, and the state seems certain to lose its NCLB waiver.  "That would mean that, starting in 2014-2015, school districts throughout the state would lose control over roughly $38 million in Title I funds designed to help low-income students.

There has been no perceptible improvement in student performance among high school students (which, when you get right down to it, is what really matters) as a whole, or when the data are broken down by different groupings of disadvantaged students.  There is little doubt-whether test-based accountability is being used to hold schools accountable or individual teachers-that it has failed to improve student performance.

 Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Jobs in Metropolitan America  review by Yasemin Besen-Cassino  in The Teachers College Record.

By 2018, 63 percent of all jobs will require at least some postsecondary education or training," (Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010), yet it is becoming less attainable, particularly for urban youth. Furthermore, many scholars and policy makers are debating the relevance of the skills provided by schools for qualifications in future careers. 

The Evolution of CreationismA String Of Court Losses Hasn't Deterred Opponents Of Evolution  by Simon Brown in  Church and State

Creationists now present their dogma as "intelligent design" and say that it must be taught in schools under the guise of "sound debate" or "academic freedom." At the same time, they work to undermine evolution, calling it "unproven" or "controversial." These tactics are working, as this insidious strategy has enabled creationists to secure public funding primarily through vouchers and charters to teach their dogma in 13 states (plus the District of Columbia) and counting.  

 Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study  by Michael Hiltzik in The Los Angeles Times

Robert Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world's leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance. It's a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.  The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson's files, "Doubt is our product." Big Tobacco's method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo's author wrote, but to establish a "controversy."

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