Education

  • Growing Organic Learning Communities

    First a few program notes, so to speak: I spoke to the 43rd LD District Democrats Tuesday evening and was able to obtain their endorsement.  Considering my late entry into the race, I'm very pleased to have it along with the King County Democrats' endorsement, which I received last month. Both will help this campaign

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  • Constructivism vs. Direct Instruction: A Common Sense Approach

    My wife grew up in the Bronx.  She did not live in a world where having a car was valued. She walked or used public transportation for everything, and she believed zealously that the internal combustion engine is the destroyer of civilizations and neighborhoods.  She didn't know how to drive when I first met her,

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  • Teaching to the Test

    "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."  Campbell's Law, Donald T. Campbell, 1976 Also known as "Heisenberg", pointing by analogy to the uncertainty

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  • Ed Reform & the Culture of Intimidation

    From Diane Ravitch, Death & Life of the Great American School System, pp.  61-62 The teachers and principals. . . were bitter about the high-handed way in which the reforms were imposed on them. Teachers, especially veterans, spoke about being harassed.  They complained about mandates and directives that narrowed what they were permitted to teach. 

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