I opened this blog several years ago, planning to use it as a teaching journal and "to keep abreast of developments in learning outcomes assessment" at a time when I chaired my private liberal arts college's assessment committee and the Bush administration was pushing hard for standardized testing in higher ed.
The journal part of it -- the "-/log" part of "B/LOG" -- only lasted a few days. Then, as the standardized testing threat subsided, I let my blogging on higher ed issues slide, too. As a classroom teacher, I wasn't comfortable blogging about politics anyway -- and assessment was more about politics than education.
So I sputtered along and finally put the blog on haitus after two years.
Now, for reasons that are increasingly obvious, I think it's time to reopen the blog and freshen up the links -- as a portal to some blogs I like to follow, that give me hope teachers are beginning to resist the corporate agenda for education. I'm no longer in higher ed. I'm retired now. And I have other interests to keep me busy.
But education at all levels is increasingly under attack from powerful vested interests, especially in Illinois. Some of the dots, at least in Chicago, are connected in a blog post by Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago's lab school. It's a polemic, but it's an unusually well documented polemic.
And there are signs that teachers at long last are beginning to fight back effectively. ...
Well, it's pretty obvious what's happening and why it's a good idea to keep up, isn't it? Some blogs I especially like:
- http://dianeravitch.net/ -- Diane Ravitch's blog:
"A site to discuss better education for all." I never could have imagined, when I was chairing the assessment committee, that I would ever agree with Diane Ravitch on anything. Now she has the best website -- to my knowledge the only credible website -- tracking education policy issues daily.
- http://preaprez.wordpress.com -- Fred Klonsky: "Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data." If you've been missing Slats Grobnik the last 10 or 15 years, check out the Tony at the Red Line Tap archives. Indispensable source on Chicago schools, Illinois politics.
- http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com -- CURMUDGUCATION: A grumpy old teacher trying to keep up the good classroom fight in the new age of reformy stuff. By Peter Greene, a high school English teacher in northwestern Pennsylvania. Writes a local newspaper column, too. Keeps up. Has Common Core, charters, other "reformy stuff" absolutely nailed!
- https://deutsch29.wordpress.com -- Mercedes Schneider, who has a Ph.D. in psychometrics and now teaches in the public schools in Louisiana. Her critique of high-stakes testing is withering because she understands the science behind it and how it is being abused.
- http://edushyster.com -- "EduShyster: Keeping an eye on the corporate education agenda" by freelancer Jennifer Berkshire who edited an AFT newsletter in Massachusetts. (She's also originally from Springfield [Ill., not Mass.]! Funny. Incisive. Has cool stickers that say "Rotten to the Common Core" and "Blame Me -- I'm a Teacher."
http://rpnps.blogspot.com RPNPS Voices: Rogers Park Neighbors For Public Schools. Especially good at tracking legislation in Springfield. Tim Furman teaches at a Chicago suburban high school. Archive: https://plus.google.com/+TimFurman123/posts.
- http://susanohanian.org/index.php -- SusanOhanian.org. National focus on what her bio on HuffPo calls the "current corporate-politico assaults on public education."
Updated frequently.
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- http://reclaimreform.com Ken Previti, retired teacher of English/Language Arts at a Chicago suburban high school. Now living in Florida. Obviously keeps up, though.
- http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/ -- "Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Sharing some ideas about public education, school reform, and ed-politics in general" -- Chicago.
- http://www.schoolnewsservice.com Jim Broadway's Illinois School Policy Updates. Bio here.
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