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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Schools Matter: Krash Course #10: NCTQ's Gradual Unmasking

Schools Matter: Krash Course #10: NCTQ's Gradual Unmasking:


Krash Course #10: NCTQ's Gradual Unmasking

With the release of the National Education Policy Center's 2011 Bunkum Awards, I feel the need to join in the spirit of NEPC's excellent work to highlight the gradual unmasking of the National Council on Teacher Quality(NCTQ).

Recently, I charactericed NCTQ's assault on teachers and teacher education as a central player in the bully politics of education reform. Since then, the evidence is gathering, exposing NCTQ as partisan politics masked as scholarly evaluations of teacher education.

NCTQ's first report has already been thoroughly dismissed in a review from NEPC: "Benner’s critique finds fault at every level of the NCTQ evaluation, including development and interpretation of the standards of evaluation, sampling techniques, methodology, data analysis, and findings."

As well, Diane Ravitch, who sat at the table in the beginning of NCTQ, has confirmed NCTQ's bully politics:
"Since then, many institutions announced that they would not collaborate. Some felt that they had