Joanne Jacobs
Ignorance isn't bliss
Los Angeles Unified will let 10 schools with low-income students drop standardized tests in favor of their own assessments.
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Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 28
- 2 min
Wisconsin lowers academic aims, adopts fuzzy labels
Wisconsin is lowering expectations for students.
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 13
- 2 min
Most grades don't match test scores: Is that a problem?
Most grades don't match students' test scores, according to the Equitable Grading Project.
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 16
- 2 min
Teachers' union takes aim at graduation exam in Massachusetts
Massachusetts could roll back reforms that made it a model of educational excellence.
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 10
- 3 min
Up, up and away: 'Recalibration' is raising AP exam scores
Advanced Placement scores were released this week, and they're higher than ever. But not necessarily because students are learning more....
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 6
- 1 min
Tests may be 'optional,' but not if you want to get in to an elite college
Yale is not “being honest about the reality of our admissions process” because the university is “denying 98 percent of the students who...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 28
- 2 min
NY will graduate critical thinkers and 'global citizens' who can't pass tests
New York plans to let students earn a high school diploma without passing Regents exams.
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 14
- 1 min
When 96% pass science, but only 16% meet standards on the test
San Diego 11th-grade students are passing classes, but failing proficiency tests.
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 19
- 2 min
Drop the admissions essay, and bring back the SAT
It's time to dump college admissions essays, writes Matthew Levey on The 74. Test scores and good grades in challenging courses are...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 8
- 2 min
Top marks for low expectations: 'Rate your teacher' surveys could backfire
Asking students to rate their teachers is a dubious way to evaluate teachers' competence, writes Vladimir Kogan, a Ohio State political...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 23
- 1 min
Poet X replaces Romeo: Why high school students can't read
Adam Kotsko, who teaches humanities at a small liberal arts college, finds that even his best students are unprepared to read and...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 14
- 2 min
'Tis better to have tried AP and earned a low grade than never to have tried at all
Taking an Advanced Placement class, struggling with college-level material and earning a low grade on the exam is a learning experience,...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 12
- 2 min
A reform too far: Sorry, your kid's only 67% of a 'whole child'
Liam sat through a semester of geometry and got a C for turning in homework, earning a 75 percent average on tests and bringing in...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 6
- 2 min
Dartmouth will require SAT/ACT scores to help low-income students
Dartmouth will require applicants to submit standardized test scores such as the SAT or ACT, ending a long "pandemic pause," reports...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 19
- 1 min
Success Academy charters are #1 in New York in math, #3 in reading
Success Academy charter students are the best in New York state in math, third best in English Language Arts (ELA) among schools with 95+...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 19
- 2 min
Fix 'em, don't nix 'em: Tests show what's working and what's not
The Zeitgeist, it is a changing. First, the New York Times ran David Leonhardt's defense of college admissions tests as a way to...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 8
- 2 min
SAT/ACT scores predict success, open doors for 'diverse' students
Want equity? Require college applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. The progressives' "war...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 4
- 2 min
Graduation exams can be 'ladder of social mobility' -- or useless
For more than a century, New York students have taken Regents exams in multiple subjects to prove they were ready for college-level work,...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 19, 2023
- 1 min
A diploma for you and a diploma for you! States drop exit exams
Grades are up and tests are out. "More states could abandon high school exit exams as a graduation requirement, writes Libby Stanford in...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 14, 2023
- 2 min
College fail: Are the Covid kids ready to learn?
"(Are you ready?) Yes, I'm ready . . . I don't even know how to hold your hand Just to make you understand But I'm ready (ready) to learn...
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