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Gerald Bracey - I used the phrase "schools suck bloc" for the first time in "A Test that Everyone Will Fail" which appeared in the Washington Post May 3 and subsequently on this blog but it was hardly the first time I'd heard that schools suck. I once had occasion to tell my son-in-law about how well American kids had done on an international comparison.

Gerald Bracey, Independent Researcher
Through executive orders, legislative initiatives, referenda or constitutional amendments a number of states have proposed measures to require school districts to spend at least 65 percent of their operational budgets on “in class instruction.”

Gerald W. Bracey 
The "65% Solution" is purely a political gambit and a gimmick. There is no evidence to support it and there is evidence against it. 

Gerald W. Bracey - The 2005 NAEP results will arrive shortly and more tongues will cluck about them this time than in the past. That's because some reformers have made the NAEP achievement levels-basic, proficient, and advanced--more prominent by calling for them to be used to validate state achievement results reported for NCLB. Such use would be a disaster. The NAEP achievement levels are "fundamentally flawed" to use the words of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Gerald W. Bracey - In her confirmation hearings, Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings expressed her desire to fix the No Child Left Behind law, but also stated, 'We must stay true to the sound principles of leaving no child behind.' This will be difficult because the 'sound principles'
are nowhere to be found. Consider the following seven deadly absurdities of the law currently.

Gerald W. Bracey - Alas, 2004 graced us with an amazing bounty of putrid fruit. And I, early in the year, declared Rod Paige ineligible for a prize. Too easy. His "terrorist organization" comment (the NEA) and the reactions thereto, his comment on the benefits of being taught by Christians and the reactions thereto

Gerald W. Bracey - A remarkable media explosion occurred on August 18 and 19. It went unnoticed by the Washington Post . A New York Times August 17 article by Diana Jean Schemo summarizing the findings of a study by the American Federation of Teachers triggered the blast.

Gerald W. Bracey
George Mason University
High/Scope Educational Research Foundation
This article is abridged and updated from "Can Charter Schools Ever Be Truly Accountable," commissioned by the Charter School Accountability Center, Florida State University and presented there January 22, 2004.

Gerald W. Bracey - A recent website headline read “Revolt Against No Child Left Behind Spreads to 47 States.” It’s about time. If one considers Iraq and Katrina to be twin disasters for the Bush Administration, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) makes it a trifecta. Although the law consumes over 1100 pages, its most egregious flaws can be quickly described as The Seven Deadly Absurdities:

On June 19, The U. S. Department of Education will release the latest reading results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). People should know in advance of that release that if NAEP were a private company, it would be sued for false advertising. And it would lose.