Of course there’s been a boatload of articles about it but since they don’t help promote the Business Roundtable Agenda Allen has tried to pretend they were difficult to find.

http://international-education.suite101.com/article.cfm/us_students_left_behind

http://joannejacobs.com/2007/12/14/leave-nclb-behind/

http://joannejacobs.com/2007/12/04/mediocre-in-science-slow-in-math/

“East Cowflop, Texas “

Wow, is that the best insult you can think of to hurl my way?

““endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas”. ”

Thanks for verifying that he is in fact, the Wal-Mart scholar.

I’m sure he has. Probably during his tenure enjoying the dubious benefits conferred by the “socialization” rampant in public elementary schools.

> His so called “studies” are in fact nothing of the sort.

I read the article three times just to make sure he wasn’t representing this as scholarly work and lo! he wasn’t. This may be what high-falutin’ education reformers do on cocktail napkins but it isn’t claimed to be scholarship so attacking it as poor scholarship is dishonest.

> If it were a REAL study it would have been peer reviewed in a professional journal, not published in some conservative magazine.

Exactly so, not that that would have deterred you from slinging scats.

> He also points out declining US math scores in internationl comparisons, but fails to mention those scores, and our international standing, have declined since NCLB was implemented.

Cite? I believe the number of sunspots has also increased since the enactment of NCLB. Want to imply a cause/effect relationship there as well?

> His Manhatten Institute bio brags of being cited in Ohio court decisions in regards to vouchers, but fails to mention that 58% of Ohio’s charters are in academic watch or emergency, vs. 10% of the regular public schools.

No it doesn’t. Not a word about Ohio. It does mention Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, a case which went before the U.S. Supreme Court in which Dr. Greene was cited four times but it seems like kind of a stretch to link any responsibility to him for the lousy job of charter law enactment committed by the Ohio legislature.

> He has ZERO teaching experience in public schools.

Yawn. “endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas”. I think that puts the “appeal to authority” by a dishonest ideologue – or is that redundant? – from East Cowflop, Texas in perspective.

> In short, he’s a paid mouthpiece for the Business Roundtable.

“In short” being the saving grace of the post.

But I’m not sure about that second part. If I do get accepted, my friends have already starting a pool on my ejection date.

Actually, this is a very poorly disguised intelligence test.

They probably believe that if you can’t figure this out on your own, you won’t be able to figure out what the teachers in your classes want to hear either, and will thus flunk.

Pretty clever, eh?

-Mark Roulo

Now, there aren’t a lot of Stanford and Berkeley graduates teaching in our low income schools (or indeed, suburban schools). One might think that these schools are manifest failures, except, of course, that both schools and applicants are lying.

These schools are turning out policy wonks who need to “do their two” before working for a thinktank.

The irony is, I actually am going to get a credential because I want to teach underprivileged children. Clearly, I’m doomed to rejection.

Having worked within the College of Education the past six years–spending much more time in close communication with the Dean, Associate Deans, department heads, and program directors than with traditional faculty–I am amazed that one could draw such a conclusion. The previous Dean was amazingly clear in his constant sermonizing that “social justice” was the most important role of public education. The programs were crafted under his leadership to reflect this philosophy. Plenty of the grads eat it up and carry it with them into the schools. Their grasp on teaching math–and other academic content–is less impressive.

The course I taught on campus a few years ago was supposed to be a foundations course on schools within society. It was really a cultural sensitivity class. That was a rough year for me.