The following is a reprint from a post that I ran last year at this time.  I think it is still relevant.

News coming in from various districts around the state of New York anecdotally indicates that increased stress levels with the new, longer state assessments have been affecting both students and teachers alike.  Stories of an uptick in the number of students who have actually become sick— vomiting directly on their test papers in fact— have been…

We regularly read or hear about schools that are labeled as failing, teachers labeled as effective or ineffective, and most troubling, students who get labeled as 1s, 2s, 3s, or 4s.  Very often we find ourselves faced with being labeled, whether by others or even ourselves.  Then there is the issue of labels that society places on individuals.  Whatever the source, internally or externally imposed, labels create a fundamental challenge for individuals.  The capacity to impose a label--“I’m…

Have you seen the commercial on TV that offers consumers a service where contractors and companies are reviewed using a data base to give people a better chance at obtaining satisfaction with their purchase?  The thought of how this may or may not be relevant to education came to me as I considered posting a review of the work recently done on the gutters of my house.  Here I thought, wouldn’t it be useful to alert…