WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The Strip/ By Brian McFadden

Linda Darling-Hammond

"If it moves, we test it." -- NYT, "The Test? Find More Straight-A Teachers"

Jackson Potter, CTU

Mayor Emanuel has a responsibility to back this train off the cliff and do the right thing. -- Sun-Times, Op-ed

Michael Winerip

 Ms. Moner told Mr. Hyde that she carried the tests in a tote bag to the principal, Clarietta Davis, who put on gloves before touching them. -- NYT, "Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Testing Scandal"

More Winerip

What made Dr. Hall just about untouchable was her strong ties to local business leaders. Atlanta prides itself in being a progressive Southern city when it comes to education, entrepreneurship and race — and Dr. Hall’s rising test scores were good news on all those fronts. She is an African-American woman who had turned around a mainly poor African-American school district, which would make Atlanta an even more desirable destination for businesses.

Valerie Strauss

Anyone following school reform over the past decade knows exactly what happened. Under No Child Left Behind, president George W. Bush’s chief education initiative, and then Race to the Top, President Obama’s central education program, placed increasingly high stakes on standardized test scores. They had to go up, or else there would be negative consequences not just for students but schools and teachers and principals. -- WaPo, "Atlanta test cheating, Tip of the Iceberg"?