Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Mazany: Focus on accountability and testing has been excessive

Chicago Public Radio:
Though he only plans to stay on as head of the Chicago Public Schools for six months, interim CEO Terry Mazany laid out a dramatically different course for schools Monday, saying that under No Child Left Behind “we’ve traded off our pursuit of excellence for the tyranny of accountability.”

Mazany said the focus has been on failing schools and all that encompasses, including firing bad teachers and principals and closing schools.

By doing so, we’ve ignored the 80 to 90 percent of schools that are good, and lost opportunities to make them great, Mazany said.

“If…we think about schools as needing to improve—not needing to be closed—then we focus the system’s resources on support and development,” Mazany told civic and business leaders at a speech at the City Club.

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