The Miracle Ballot - How the Common Core can make judging easier and more instructive

After a two-diamond coaching career in the National Forensic League, I now develop Common Core curriculum, assessment tools, and teacher workshops. I currently sit on California’s ELA/ELD Curriculum Framework Committee and advise its State Speech Council. The National Forensic League originally published this article in its February 2013 issue of Rostrum.

            We expect every judge to be a tabula rasa – a blank slate – whenever they walk into a classroom and evaluate our students. To drive the point home, we hand them a slip of paper that resembles, for all intents and purposes, a blank slate.

Lifting the Common Curse

“Americans of all political persuasions tend to get nostalgic about what they think of as the great causes of the past. …The fight against Jim Crow has become a kind of civic fairy tale in which the forces of good triumphed over the forces of evil; the saga has its heroes and villains, its martyrs and shrines….And now, … those who care about civil rights — those who care  about human rights — must dedicate themselves to the cause of public education. It’s the crucial front … access to a good public education is the civil-rights issue of our time. End of debate.”