Joanne Jacobs
Testing basic skills leads to two-tier system
Schools serving mainly poor and minority students end up teaching the basic skills and schools serving more advantaged students, knowing...
top of page
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 30, 2018
- 2 min
Show me the test scores
You want my kids to go to your schools? Show me they’re learning, writes Citizen Stewart in a defense of test-based accountability....
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 11, 2018
- 2 min
More states rely on robo-graders for essay tests
Pearson’s “automated scoring program graded some 34 million student essays on state and national high-stakes tests last year,” she...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 31, 2018
- 2 min
22% of Pomona students are ‘disabled’
classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety,” reports Douglas Belkin in the Wall Street...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 15, 2018
- 2 min
We’re teaching reading wrong
We’re teaching reading wrong, writes Natalie Wexler in The Atlantic. U.S. schools spend a lot of time on reading skills in the early...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 10, 2018
- 2 min
Nation’s report card shows ‘lost decade’
Reading and math proficiency isn’t improving for fourth- and eighth-graders, according to the 2017 National Assessment of Education...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 28, 2018
- 2 min
SAT/ACT may replace state test in California
California may let schools replace 11th-grade Smarter Balanced tests with the SAT or ACT, reports CALmatters’ Felicia Mello. That might...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 12, 2018
- 1 min
Who’s college ready? Let’s find out
States vow to graduate students who are college- and career-ready but have no idea if they’re succeeding, writes Checker Finn. The...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 23, 2018
- 1 min
To get to equity, teach ’em to read
Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality is tired of apologizing for her “narrow-minded” focus on academic goals as the way...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 28, 2017
- 2 min
Atlanta’s cheated students
Ten years later after the Atlanta cheating scandal broke, “educators continue to fight to clear their names and the district attempts to...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 27, 2017
- 1 min
Testing empowers parents
Testing enables social justice, argues Keri Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Massachusetts Parents United in CommonWealth Magazine. Minority...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 7, 2017
- 2 min
If at first you fail the test …
When students are allowed to retake tests for a better grade, what do they learn? Julie Scagell, a Minnesota mother, wonders if her...
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 14, 2017
- 1 min
Testing pushes weakest teachers to K-2
How should an elementary school deploy its best teachers? Many would argue that first grade is the most critical grade — or maybe...
Joanne Jacobs
- Apr 21, 2017
- 2 min
Indiana: Private schools test for vouchers
Indiana’s private schools now “live or die by test scores,” reports Dylan Peers McCoy for Chalkbeat. If schools don’t score well enough...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 23, 2017
- 1 min
Work, study, dream — and stay poor
Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. Photo: Linda Lutton/WBEZ “School is what makes the American Dream possible,” writes WBEZ reporter...
bottom of page