The Emperor’s New Clothes and the Virginia SOL Tests
My son is scheduled to take two state-mandated, standardized tests this month. He is in fourth grade. This would be the 11th and 12th...
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Doug Wren
- May 15
Will Old Donation School Ever Be Fully Integrated? Part 3: The Great Equalizer
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash In case you were wondering about the main title of this blog series, Virginia Beach’s Old Donation...
Doug Wren
- Apr 6
Will Old Donation School Ever Be Fully Integrated? Part 2: The Folly of Testing First Graders
In Part 1 of this blog series, I reported some unsettling statistics from the Virginia Department of Education’s 2021 and 2022 Fall...
Doug Wren
- Sep 26, 2022
Two Steps Forward and One Back
Anyone who has read my summer blog series or the letter I wrote recently to the editor of Virginia’s largest daily newspaper knows where...
Doug Wren
- Jul 25, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open To Change. (Part Seven – Finale)
When I posted Part 1 over seven weeks ago, I said it was the first installment of a multi-part blog series. At that time, I didn’t know...
Doug Wren
- Jul 7, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part Six)
Welcome to Part 6 of my blog series. So far, we’ve covered how a large school district uses universal screening, standardized testing,...
Doug Wren
- Jun 30, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part Five)
The purpose of this blog series is to analyze the reasons behind the underidentification of certain identity groups in a large school...
Doug Wren
- Jun 22, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part Four)
So far in this blog series, I’ve shown the discrepancies between the proportion of Black, Latine, and economically disadvantaged students...
Doug Wren
- Jun 13, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part Three)
Welcome back to my blog series. In Part 1, I explained that the series is an update to my June 2021 article, Promoting Privilege:...
Doug Wren
- Jun 9, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part Two)
In Part 1, I explained that the purpose of this blog series is to provide updates to my June 2021 journal article. In the article, I...
Doug Wren
- Jun 2, 2022
Put Students First. Seek Growth. Be Open to Change. (Part One)
My most recent journal article, Promoting Privilege: Selecting Students for a Public Gifted School, was published one year ago this...
Meghan Raftery
- Apr 22, 2022
I’m a Public Educator & I'm Opting My Son Out of Standardized Testing: Why & How You May Do the Same
I never took a high-stakes test in my 13 years as a K-12 public school student. Standardized testing was not yet the norm when I was in...
Laura Solomon
- Oct 12, 2021
Chapter Two: Ramblings from an Overwhelmed, Frustrated, but Grateful New Teacher
Phase I: Excitement and Nervousness “FFTs (effing first times): How hard it is to be new at things – from small things to global...
Doug Wren
- Aug 29, 2021
K-12 Testing: To Infinity and Beyond Reason (Part Two)
Welcome back, gentle readers. In the previous installment of this two-part blog series, I described how the bipartisan No Child Left...
Doug Wren
- Aug 27, 2021
K-12 Testing: To Infinity and Beyond Reason (Part One)
It’s back to school time and kids everywhere are excited about the prospect of taking lots of tests to measure their “learning loss”...
Doug Wren
- Jul 25, 2021
Why Gifted Programs Lack Diversity
Before taking a central office job with the DeKalb County (GA) School District, I was a classroom teacher at a magnet school for high...
Meghan Raftery
- May 25, 2020
Part 1: Taekwondo as Lesson Study
I wrote this post several months ago, after conversations with a few educator colleagues whose kids attend the same martial arts school....
Laura Solomon
- Apr 19, 2020
What If... School Was Filled With Wonder and Exploration Instead of Standards
Laura Solomon Parent, military spouse, aspiring educational innovator BSIE – Georgia Institute of Technology MEd, Social Foundations –...
Doug Wren
- Apr 11, 2020
What if… All Educators Were Assessment Literate?
Doug Wren is a consultant and author of the book Assessing Deeper Learning: Developing, Implementing, and Scoring Performance Tasks. He...
Doug Wren
- Mar 25, 2020
Thoughts on Standardized Testing After the Storm Has Passed
Doug Wren has worked in public education for nearly three decades—half of that time as a classroom teacher. He recently retired from...
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