 | Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate |
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“Standards, in many places, have proven nebulous and low,” he writes in a coming essay. “ ‘Accountability’ has turned to test-cramming and bean-counting, often limited to basic reading and math skills.” Chester E. Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education, who worked at two conservative research groups, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The quote above seemed...timely.The focus of the article from which it was taken was really: "Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling. " Pretty interesting to see how a long-time educational thought leader's perceptions have changed as theory met reality and spawned experience. Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html |