PHI DELTA KAPPAN January 2001 Fighting the Tests A Practical Guide to Rescuing Our Schools By Alfie Kohn Don’t let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered. Every empirical investigation … Read More
Standardized Testing and Its Victims (**)
EDUCATION WEEK September 27, 2000 Standardized Testing and Its Victims By Alfie Kohn Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole. (Of course, on “The Late, Late Show,” no one ever insists that the monster is really doing us a … Read More
Sell Schools, Not Test Scores
REALTOR MAGAZINE January 2000 Sell Schools, Not Test Scores By Alfie Kohn Everyone knows that buyers are attracted to neighborhoods with good schools. But not everyone has had occasion to think about what makes schools good. That’s why many realtors continue to assume – falsely – that high test scores are a positive sign. To begin with, test scores closely parallel the … Read More
Turning the Tables
BOSTON GLOBE November 14, 1999 Turning the tables: What if students and parents designed a test for the Board of Education? By Tim Wise With the release last week of the latest scores on the MCAS tests, or Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, we are once again being bombarded with warnings about “failing schools.” The stakes are high; these statewide standardized … Read More
In Defense of the Progressive School
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL Fall 1999 Vol. 59, No. 1 In Defense of the Progressive School An Interview with Alfie Kohn By Kitty Thuermer A former teacher turned author and lecturer, Alfie Kohn was recently described by Timemagazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.” We would add to this list “outspoken critic of our … Read More
The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement (**)
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR November 1999 The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement By Alfie Kohn Only extraordinary education is concerned with learning; most is concerned with achieving: and for young minds, these two are very nearly opposite. — Marilyn French I. Common sense suggests we should figure out what our educational goals are, then check in periodically to see how successful we … Read More
On Teaching Reading, Spelling, and Related Subjects
Excerpts from The Schools Our Children Deserve (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999) On Teaching Reading, Spelling, and Related Subjects Half Truths About Whole Language By Alfie Kohn “Kids aren’t learning how to read these days because ivory-tower ideologues have eliminated the teaching of necessary basic skills in favor of feel-good, PC fads like Whole Language. We’d do a lot better if we … Read More
What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction
From Chapter 9: “Getting the 3 R’s Right” in The Schools Our Children Deserve (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999) What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction Why the Basics Just Don’t Add Up By Alfie Kohn The still-dominant Old School model begins with the assumption that kids primarily need to learn “math facts”: the ability to say “42” as soon as they hear … Read More
Moving Beyond Facts, Skills, and Right Answers
From Chapter 3: “Getting Teaching and Learning Wrong” in The Schools Our Children Deserve (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) Moving Beyond Facts, Skills, and Right Answers By Alfie Kohn The trouble with the Tougher Standards movement isn’t limited to its failure to understand the costs of overemphasizing achievement. The movement is also vulnerable by virtue of the way it defines achievement. The vast majority of policy makers … Read More
First Lesson: Unlearn How We Learned (commentary)
WASHINGTON POST October 10, 1999 First Lesson: Unlearn How We Learned By A Look At . . . Getting Back to Basics Alfie Kohn We are facing an educational emergency in this country. You’ve heard that claim before, of course, but this time there’s a twist: Much of the current crisis is the result of policies enacted in the name … Read More