An in-depth exploration of education in the 21st century South.
Civil Rights. Voter ID Laws. Felon Rights. These topics aren’t foreign for teachers and students in Southern classrooms. But what happens when pressure to teach to the test prevents challenging conversations?
Last spring, students across Louisiana took a new standardized test called PARCC – also known as the Common Core test. Now the state has released preliminary test scores.
Alabama recently got some unflattering news about its students’ proficiency, especially in eighth-grade math. The National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP is a standardized test sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” On the 2013 test, Alabama eighth-graders ranked fiftieth out of 52 jurisdictions in mathematics (military-base schools, and those in the District of Columbia, were counted as two additional groups). As with most education topics, though, it’s not quite that simple. Our Alabama reporter Dan Carsen sat down with Alabama School Connection executive director Trisha Powell Crain to go behind the results. She says we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on one data point, or be too surprised at Alabama’s low showing.
Alison Grizzle isn’t your typical teacher, or even your typical Alabama Teacher of the Year. The Birmingham City Schools math instructor is known for being very outspoken, even on third-rail issues like standardized testing and the Common Core State Standards. We thought we’d share her thoughts on those issues and more as staff and students return to school routines. Our Alabama reporter Dan Carsen recently caught up with Grizzle at an education conference where she was giving talks. But it turns out this award-winning teacher almost didn’t become a teacher at all.
There’s been a revolution in American K-12 education: the “Common Core State Standards.” Released in 2010, they’re math and language arts standards meant to raise rigor and establish consistency across the nation. They’ve been adopted in 45 states. But in the first of a three-part series, Alabama reporter Dan Carsen tells us that even in those places, all is not quiet on the Common Core front.
More than 60 percent of Louisiana’s school districts made AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress), but districts are finding it much harder to close the achievement gap.
There’s a lot happening on the Alabama education beat right now. The state legislature is in its last week, with controversial charter school bills and more hanging in the balance. The Department of Justice is concerned with the lingering effects of Alabama’s immigration law on Latino students, the vast majority of whom are legal. And of course, there are people of all ages doing great things. WBHM’s Tanya Ott interviews SED reporter Dan Carsen in this week’s installment of “All Things Alabama Education.”
Spring means standardized testing for most public school students. In Tennessee, the TCAP test, an annual assessment of students’ skills at certain grade levels, has an unprecedented impact. TCAP scores will now count in students’ final grades for the school year.
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