About this item
No sooner is a child walking and talking than the ABCs and 1-2-3s give way to the full-on alphabet soup: the ERBs, the OLSAT, the IQ, the NCLB for AYP, the IEP for ELLs, the CHAT and PDDST for ASD or LD and G&T or ADD and ADHD, the PSATs, then the ACTs and SATs - all designed to assess and monitor a child's readiness for education. In many public schools, students are spending up to 28% of instructional time on testing and test prep.Starting this year, the introduction of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in 45 states will bring an unprecedented level of new, more difficult, and longer mandatory tests to nearly every classroom in the nation up to five times a year - forcing our national testing obsession to a crisis point. Taxpayers are spending extravagant money on these tests - up to $1.
About the Author
Anya is endlessly curious about learning and the future. Her forthcoming book, The Art of Screen Time (PublicAffairs, 2018) is the first, essential, don't-panic guide to kids, parents, and screens. You can preorder it now!Generation Debt (Riverhead, 2006) , dealt with youth economics and politics; DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education (Chelsea Green, 2010) , investigated innovations to address the crises in cost, access, and quality in higher education. The Test (PublicAffairs, 2015) , is about the past, present and future of testing in American schools. Learning, Freedom and the Web, The Edupunks' Guide, and the Edupunks' Atlas are her free web projects about self-directed, web-enabled learning. Anya is the lead digital education correspondent for NPR. Her team's blog is at . Previously she covered technology, innovation, sustainability and social entrepreneurship for five years as a staff writer for Fast Company magazine. She's contributed to The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Slate, and O, the Oprah Magazine. She was named a 2010 Game Changer in Education by the Huffington Post and won 2009, 2010, and 2015 National Awards from the Education Writers Association. NPR Ed won a 2017 Edward R. Murrow award for Innovation from the Radio Television Digital News Association. She appears in the documentaries Generation Next (2006) , Default: A Student Loan Documentary (2011) , both shown on PBS, and Ivory Tower, distributed by Participant Media. Anya grew up in Louisiana, in a family of writers and mystics, and graduated from Yale University in 2002. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
