The Education Carnival, #45

I neglected to mention this when it first went up this week, but The Education Wonks have the 45th weekly Education Carnival up on their site. This one is best browsed by parents first just to be on the safe side.

They want you to know that

"Next Week's Carnival midway will be guest-hosted by Coturnix over at Circadiana. Please send contributions
to: coturnix1[at] aol [dot] com. They should be received no later than 5:00 PM
(Eastern) 2:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday, December 20th. Please include the title of
your post, and its URL, if possible. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the
midway of the 46th edition of the Carnival should open next Wednesday morning.">

Fortunately my brother managed to make a clean copy of my great great grandfather's test for teacher certification (circa 1900) and mailed it back to me already, so by next week I should have the second half up. He made such a clear copy that I think I can just scan the algebra section without too much trouble.

Meanwhile...

Ogre's Politics was a favorite of mine (PG read). IT's a short, brushing bracing* dose of common sense. Here's a taste:

The easy solution [to a teacher shortage] is the one that's overlooked -- if the state can't find enough teachers, stop trying. Seriously. There's no reason that the state should be the only provider of education. The state should simply give up, perhaps starting at the high school level -- just stop providing high school, let the market take over, and give tax credits to anyone with school-age children.

Today's Homework has an interesting method of dealing with chatty eighth graders. The Common Room Scholars might read this and be thankful that we don't take a newspaper.:-)

Number 2 Pencil has an eye popping post about recent errors in scoring and reporting a standardized test.

There were others of interest, but not a few of the most interesting titles contained strong language, among other things. Browse at your discretion.

*Updated to correct several errors, not the least of which was to type 'brushing' when I meant 'bracing.' I think I was discussing with the FYG the importance of brushing her hair every single morning at the same time I was trying to type.