EDUCATION WEEK September 18, 2013 Encouraging Courage By Alfie Kohn [This is a slightly expanded version of the published article.] Education research doesn’t always get the respect it deserves, but let’s be honest: There’s already enough of it to help us decide what to do (or stop doing) on many critical issues. Likewise, there are plenty of examples of outstanding … Read More
Poor Teaching for Poor Children … in the Name of Reform (##)
EDUCATION WEEK April 27, 2011 Poor Teaching for Poor Children … in the Name of Reform By Alfie Kohn [This is a slightly expanded version of the published article.] Love them or hate them, the proposals collectively known as “school reform” are mostly top-down policies: divert public money to quasi-private charter schools, pit states against one another in a race … Read More
The Folly of Merit Pay (**)
EDUCATION WEEK September 17, 2003 The Folly of Merit Pay By Alfie Kohn There’s no end to the possible uses for that nifty little Latin phrase Cui bono?, which means: Who benefits? Whose interests are served? It’s the right question to ask about a testing regimen guaranteed to make most public schools look as though they’re failing. Or about the assumption … Read More
State-Mandated Testing: Why We Opt Out
EDUCATION WEEK March 12, 2003 State-Mandated Testing: Why We Opt Out When it comes to testing mandates, we exercise our rights as parents to protect our children from activities not in their interests. By Catherine Ross Hamel & Fred L. Hamel When district- or state-mandated testing comes around in our children’s public schools, we opt out. We inform our kids’ … 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
Students Don’t “Work”–They Learn (*)
EDUCATION WEEK September 3, 1997 Students Don’t “Work”–They Learn By Alfie Kohn September is a new beginning, a time for fresh starts. Consider, then, a resolution that you and your colleagues might make for this school year: From now on, we will stop referring to what students do in school as “work.” Importing the nomenclature of the workplace is … Read More