From the CURMUDGUCATION blog: What Do They Know?

Posted by Peter Greene at Saturday, February 27, 2016

What Do They Know?

Anthony Cody has a great piece at his blog, Living in Dialogue (which should be on your must-read list) that puts the push for Competency based Education in the context of the reformster movement. In particular, this–

There are two unwritten assumptions that are constant from the beginning of NCLB and carry through to this new version. Teachers are not trusted to make judgments about what students learn, how they learn it, or how learning is assessed. Assessment is defined as the external monitoring of the work inside the classroom. The second assumption is that data and technology must be instrumental in whatever process is devised. The main innovation here is the more thorough and intrusive penetration of the classroom via computers capable of monitoring learning.

One question that naturally follows– why, exactly, are teachers not to be trusted?

Reformsters tend to fall into two camps.

Read the rest of this blog post here: CURMUDGUCATION: What Do They Know?

From the OpenSecrets Blog: Nonprofits dominate airwaves in Senate races, with no donor disclosure

When Democrats consider their odds for regaining the Senate this November, one of the first states that comes to mind is Pennsylvania, where first-term Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, is locked in a rematch with former Democratic Sen. Joe Sestak, who lost to Toomey in 2010.

But for a race with such high stakes, it seems, at first glance, to have drawn little interest from outside groups, which have reported spending only about $500,000 to sway the state’s voters so far, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Nearly all of that spending has come from one source:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a 501(c)(6) trade association that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. Kicking its effort off in early July last year, the Chamber said it wanted to show its support for Toomey “before the presidential sweepstakes really takes off in August.”

Click here to read the full article.

Source: Nonprofits dominate airwaves in Senate races, with no donor disclosure | OpenSecrets Blog