Category Archives: Tom

The New York City reform model is centered upon closing ‘failing’ schools and opening new ones. Some of these ‘failing’ schools have been pillars of their communities for decades. One such school I read about in The New York Times … Continue reading →

Perhaps the most controversial issue in Ed Reform is whether or not it is fair to tie teacher evaluation to their ‘performance’ as defined by reformers as how their students do on standardized exams.  Since even reformers acknowledge that teachers … Continue reading →

In the first two parts of this series I examined how the New York City progress report system is less about measuring a school’s quality and more about comparing schools.  The number of comparisons that occurs to determine the ‘progress’ … Continue reading →

In the previous post I demonstrated how the New York City progress reports are distorted by a inappropriate use of ‘standard deviation’ to unfairly punish schools that score slightly below average on certain metrics when all the scores are very … Continue reading →

I was inspired to get to the bottom of the New York City school progress report grades after reading this story from the New York Times Schoolbook website about P.S. 84 which was one of the thirty F rated schools … Continue reading →

I knew that if I had enough patience the corporate reformers would eventually let slip some data which would prove, once and for all, how unscientific are the metrics they’ve been using to shut down schools. That day came earlier … Continue reading →