Education Under Siege

Frauds, Fads, Fantasies and Fictions in Educational Reform

Arthur Shapiro

• Publisher: R&L Education
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781475803099
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

We Americans seem prone to bandwagon onto fads, particularly now that reforming education has become a national priority. Unfortunately, many of those fads now caroming across our continent are outright frauds; some are fantasies, even fictions. Even more unfortunately, many are undermining our public schools, teachers, kids and communities, and pillaging our tax dollars in the process.
This book analyzes each major reform--No Child Left Behind, Common Core State Standards, grading schools, evaluating teachers, failing students, vouchers, charters, online virtual charters-- and finds them seriously wanting. We conclude with reforms that work actually helping teachers, kids, parents and communities.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Race to the Top (NCLB 2.0), and Their Basis—The Accountability Movement
• Common Core State Standards (for 310 Million Americans!)
• Merit and Teacher Evaluation—Another Fraud
• Instead of Teacher Evaluation, Which Isn’t Working—A Different Approach
• Evaluating Teachers by Using Value-Added Models (VAMs) (Whatever That Means)
• Failing Kids—Still a Failure
• Evaluating vs. Grading (Really Rating ) Schools
• Privatization: Fad, Fraud, Fantasy and/or Fiction?
• Charter Schools: A Form of Privatization
• Vouchers: Another Form of Privatization
• Virtual Charter Schools: Privatization on Steroids
• Miracles (or Really, Mirages) for the Gullible
• Major Reforms That Really Work
• About the Author