Part of the Bay Area News Group

Too many standards, too little time

By Katy Murphy
Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 11:51 am in Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg, a recently retired Oakland middle school teacher, critiques California’s content standards.

Having written previously about ways education has improved in the 40 years since I began teaching, I would like to address one change that I do not believe has been beneficial: the attempt to make “content standards” the basis for everything in education.

The standards movement, which began about 20 years ago, is an effort to improve K-12 education by creating a list of content standards for each course and grade level, telling teachers exactly what needs to be taught and measuring what students have learned using tests built around those standards. California started generating these standards about 12 years ago, and now has content standards and tests for English, Math, Science, and History. These standards list between 40 and 70 things that need to be taught in each subject, each year. With 180 days in a school year, it is clear that this allows only two to four days per standard.

These standards are based on a misconception of what education is. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s a teacher!

By Katy Murphy
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 5:16 pm in teachers

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Oakland’s school food movement: What will it take to fix a broken system?

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 6:31 pm in families, health, students

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Young teachers’ views on pay, unions and retention

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 10:52 am in teachers

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Nerves, crowds and competition: A family starts its search for an Oakland high school

By Katy Murphy
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm in families, high schools, parents

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Kakishiba isn’t stepping down quite yet

By Katy Murphy
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 6:35 pm in School board news

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Report: Stimulus saved 80K education jobs in CA

By Katy Murphy
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 2:56 pm in finances, teachers

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Homecoming at Oakland Tech

By Katy Murphy
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:02 pm in athletics/physical education, high schools, students, teens

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A celebratory dunk

By Katy Murphy
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:39 pm in NCLB, high schools, test scores

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Oakland’s new Tonys and the city-schools divide

By Katy Murphy
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:38 pm in Tony Smith, community, crime, safety

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