Seattle Schools Community Forum

The NY Times is having a discussion over the right time for which books i.e. should a 6-year old read Harry Potter?  There are a series of short essays from various people on the subject.  As a former children's bookseller, I would err on the side of waiting for certain books.  You can read almost any book to any child at any time but many themes are possibly too big for some kids as presented in some books. They could read them at 6 and then again at 12 and get something different.  That would be okay (and to be expected) except that if the theme worries the child or causes upset at a younger age, was that worth it?  Those books will always be there; it's not like they go away.  

From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, an article about D.C.'s county superintendent calling on President Obama and Secretary Duncan to call a moratorium on standardized testing. He also said it was wrong to evaluate teachers based on the scores their students get on standardized tests because the method that is is based on “bad science.” He noted that he had previously worked in the New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest school system, where was director of school performance and accountability. It became clear, he said, that the formulas used to assess a teacher’s value with the use of test scores had huge margins of error, as much as 55 points. In fact, he said that a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-source the development and let teachers design them rather than have corporations do it. He criticized policies that help make public education   “a private commodity.” An op-ed fr...