The Blog of Ms. Mercer

From my friend Carrie, a Web site designer at UC Berekley:
A Brief Message: No Child Left Behind Is Leaving Designers Behind

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2¢ Worth » Comments Ketchup… David Warlick shares some comments he’s heard recently…
Then I run across a comment that I was mostly impressed with. But the author, a network filter administrator, said,
When I go through the process of adding a new Universal Resource Locator (URL) to the filter database I actually personally evaluate [...]

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Dangerously Irrelevant: The good old days before NCLB? points to this post No good old days at Joanne Jacobs
Joanne Jacobs questions NCLB critics romance of the days before NCLB. Since the state I work in was already on a path to standards based instruction and trying to have some coherence in planning and delivery, NCLB [...]

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…which in my opinion is to tell the truth. I came across, One Minute of Nonsense when Larry Feralazzo sent me to an article on Whole Language living on. That led me to this article on Dibels, where I answer a commenter who likes her Dibels. Summary: some kind of assessment data, is the [...]

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Dangerously Irrelevant: ROTW: Assessing students with disabilities leads us to this report:
Education Sector: Analysis and Perspectives: Labeled: The Students Behind NCLB’s ‘Disabilities’ Designation
They talk about Specific Learning Disabilities as the largest group in Special Education. While they are certainly more likely than most categories of special education students to achieve grade level proficiency (speech with [...]

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Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix metaphor for our current school system? YOU decide after looking at the words of the character Dolores Umbridge:
…from now on you will be following a carefully structured Ministry approved course of defensive magic…
…you will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way…
That remind anyone of Reading [...]

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Lot’s of talk around the edublogosphere about equity in education, and what poor, language learners need to succeed. First, Scott McLeod points to an article out of Portland, Oregon to ask “To script or not to script?”.
The discussion continued at The Elementary Educator with Poor Minority Kids Need Scripted Teaching; Everyone Else Deserves Something Better
At [...]

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Cross-posted at Classroom2.0 on ning.com
Okay, now that I have your attention, I’ll point you to this post http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/04/20/margaret-spellings-is-under-fire/ from guest blogger Scott McLeod on Wes Fryer’s “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” (not faster than the average 6 month old if Spellings has her way, I guess).
Scott lists all the K-12 technology programs that have been axed so [...]

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Since it’s the start of testing in many states, the ire is rising. I won’t actually start testing until May (California tests late).
Tom’s post above is very heartfelt, and I’ve had my on musings on this subject. I think we have to have some accountability and assessment, I just wish is was more authentic than [...]

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Bad science, bad, bad, science!

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