I'm not alone in challenging Susan's Engel's op ed:

In her February 2 Op-ed piece in The New York Times, Susan Engel of Williams College celebrates the current administration's goal of education reform, but cautions that reform may not mean much unless the curriculum is changed. Test-driven accountability, she argues, has led to a curriculum that "is strangling children and teachers alike." As an alternative, she suggests a curriculum with more authentic, real-world tasks, and greater student choice.

Engel does not mention that this curriculum has been tried again and again, and it has failed again and again.

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Willingham: On Susan Engel

My guest today is cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia and author of "Why Don't Students Like School?"

By Daniel Willingham

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/willingham.html

In her February 2 Op-ed piece in The New York Times, Susan Engel of Williams College celebrates the current administration's goal of education reform, but cautions that reform may not mean much unless the curriculum is changed. Test-driven accountability, she argues, has led to a curriculum that "is strangling children and teachers alike." As an alternative, she suggests a curriculum with more authentic, real-world tasks, and greater student choice.