Oregan?

Alonso will be overseeing assessments. How about overseeing why the class size of Baltimore City Public Schools is over 30 students! How will students learn to their potential, the school make AYP and the School system turn around if students are being packed in to classes with one teacher? Why is the district letting this happen? Please Erica do an investigation on class size in Baltimore City compare it to counties that made AYP! Why is Baltimore City failing, because no one cares. There needs to be a cap on class size. Please teachers speak up!

It is completely embarrassing that Alonso has been named to anything that has to do with education. After quitting his law practice he taught two years after being "trained" by an alternative method. He has no clue what it takes to teach, much less assess. If teachers speak up, they are canned. Teachers have no say. That is why over 300 people retired this year and over 200 retired last year. Teachers are not supposed to question anything or make public comments about anything. It is time to allow trained educators to lead education and send the attorneys, business people and think tanks back where they belong.

Absolutely!! Alonso, is a politician not an educator. It is equally disheartening that our union has allowed the Alonso Administration to reduce us to at-will
employees.

Shouldn't someone charge Arne Duncan with reckless endangerment for making this appointment. Alonzo's theory of practice is counter intuitive to education. His cheating scandals and lack of support for BCPS is proof of this. Please stop the madness.

It is disheartening - to put it mildly - to read these posts.

Where are the thoughtful and reasoned readers of old, those who weighed the topic and supported their opinions with hard-to-argue-with facts and probing, original questions? Are you folks still out there?

What does it mean for AAA to be appointed to this commission? What does he owe our city and its students as he takes on this prominent national role? What MIGHT the posters thus far be missing about AAA and the reasons those ed reformers outside Baltimore are turning to him?

Turn the focus away from yourselves and train it on your students: might AAA in a leadership role at the national testing level (especially the NAEP) be a good thing for Baltimore kids in the long run?

It's just too funny that Arne Duncan asked Alonso to be on the NAEP governing board.

In a brilliant move, Alonso had Duncan in town 2 years ago to celebrate the achievement of a school where cheating was later exposed. That pretty much sums up what Alonso knows about teaching and testing.

Alright, Cookin' - I'll take the bait, to the best of my ability.

I think that it is a good thing that AAA is serving on the NAEP Board. I believe that our students should be judged by competitive standards that are linked to post-secondary success. MSA and HSA scores aren't rigorous enough. I believe that the drop in MSA scores last year had more to do with the vigorous accountability measures as opposed to some flaw in instruction or regression to the mean. I further believe that NAEP - with its somewhat mysterious test items and better quality monitors - are a better standardized measure of our students' and schools' performance. Even if it doesn't have a direct link to college success (like SAT performance), it does compare us to national norms in a manner that no other does besides the Stanfords (which I think are junk anyway, but thats for another post).

If this is close to AAA's thinking, then I am very supportive. So he wants to figure out what to do with high stakes testing? I could do without the testing, but it is the reality for our students. So he was a non-traditional teacher? My bias is that good work can come from people who have more of a policy or statistician bent -

Love it or hate it, thats what the man has brought to our city. I argue that we are better for it and that we'll be even better if he gets some more insight from serving on this board.

@Warren: Thanks for taking the bait but since I agree with you I'm afraid I won't have much of a response beyond this.