Class Struggle - Jay Mathews' Education Blog - October 18, 2009

My obit for Jerry Bracey

My obituary for the great media critic and insightful author Gerald W. Bracey, who supplied a ton of great quotes to a generation of education writers, ran Friday. Here it is....

21st century skills: another disappointment

I am trying NOT to write off the 21st century skills movement as a sham, but its leaders don’t make it easy....

Is America's best school too good for grade point bonuses?

Note to readers: Thursday the Post launches its new Local Living section, which will include a bonus Class Struggle column each week from me. That means my weekly Thursday Extra Credit column answering reader questions is no more, since...

Duncan to ed schools: End 'mediocre' training

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in prepared remarks circulating in advance of a speech Thursday, accuses many of the nation's schools of education of doing "a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom." My colleague Nick...

Gerald W. Bracey, education's most acidic pundit, dead at 69

Education Week just reported that Gerald W. Bracey---Jerry to his many friends, including me---died peacefully in his sleep sometime Tuesday night. This was a shock to me. I didn't know he was sick. He had sounded fine a week...

Is cutting college to three years a good idea?

Newsweek's cover story, "The Three-Year Solution," by U.S. Senator and former Education Secretary and University of Tennessee president Lamar Alexander, has the great virtue of forcing a rethink of how we have been doing higher education for more than...

Making the grade not about race, but culture

The Post's brilliant and provocative teacher-essayist, Patrick Welsh, did it again Sunday in his Outlook section piece, "Making the Grade Isn't About Race. It's About Parents." Read it. You will find not only a vivid description of what motivates...

Test that makes U.S. look bad may not be so good

Politicians and pundits are using results from the Programme for International Student Assessment|(PISA) tests to say our kids are falling behind the rest of the world, so maybe we should get some PISA practice. Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, a...

Solve These International Test Math Problems

Here are a few samples for readers whose appetite for math was whetted by my Monday column on international test comparisons:...

Class Struggle: October 18, 2009 - October 24, 2009