Weekend Reading: Are school reform critics scapegoating Teach for America?

  • Are the central complaints about Teach For America coming from critics of school reform outdated? (Salon)
  • Book author Dana Goldstein on why Arne Duncan’s comments on testing are “staggering.” (The Daily Beast)
  • Ignore the politics. The Common Core will “live or die” by how well it works in classrooms. (Vox)
  • Why should preschoolers get suspended? One teacher explains. (Greater Greater Washington)
  • Providence, R.I. teachers rejected a tentative contract that allowed for layoffs and altered the pay structure. (Teacher Beat)
  • A teacher wonders whether her well-intentioned advice on reading has hurt her students. (Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension)
  • Education and medicine used to be quite similar and they could become that way again. (The Atlantic)
  • We need to rethink how we hold schools accountable, three columnists argue. (Flypaper)
  • Philadelphia will borrow $30 million to fund its schools, on top of $27 million borrowed earlier this year. (The Notebook)
  • A Colorado teacher is refusing to administer the state’s Common Core-aligned test. (Answer Sheet)
  • A teacher reflects on what it takes to get students to learn — and giving them their hardest quiz of the year. (The Jose Vilson)
  • In Mississippi, some Teacher for America alums are sticking around to make the changes they felt they couldn’t as teachers. (Hechinger Report)
  • An attempt to turn around low-performing Detroit schools run afoul of education technology and a lack of transparency. (Metro Times)
  • African-American girls face an long list of barriers to succeeding in school. (Huffington Post)
  • In honor of Banned Book Week, a look at what books Jefferson County, Colorado — currently embroiled in a controversy over censorship — has banned from schools. (Chalkbeat Colorado)
  • A collection of tweets on the student protests against the board’s actions in Jefferson County. (Buzzfeed)