If you are a teacher in a school where children are lucky enough to get recess, please don’t use it as a disciplinary tool. Don’t deny students with behavioral issues recess for punishment. If you do, not only will you not be doing right by your students, you will risk looking like you know little […]
Real Problems in Education and Teachers Who Cheat
In Memphis, a man who was helping an elderly woman into her car was attacked by a group of young people at a gas station across the street from a school. In another part of town a mom worries about gang retaliation at her child’s high school. Memphis is not alone. No matter what city […]
Students Can’t Hide From Common Core No Matter What School they Attend
The more I read about Common Core and education reform, the more I am convinced that one of the most important issues is that all students will have to be instructed with these standards if they choose to attend college. A misconception exists about students in private or parochial schools being lucky that they won’t […]
Pinpointing Reading Disabilities to Help Students Succeed
Reading disabilities exist. Research in neuroscience is showing this to be true, and public schools and special education should be on the front lines working to remediate these deficits and helping children to adapt so they can be successful in school. One serious drawback for students with disabilities, in the one-size-fits-all class, is that they […]
The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015—Concerns
Bloggers are describing their interpretation of The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015. I wanted to add my concerns. Here is the summary of the Act. Here is the long version. First, I am not a fan of what states and even the local school districts have done to public schools. So I don’t get […]
Blaming Teachers While Students Self-Destruct
Two recent articles, and published comments, unfairly incriminate teachers as those who fail students. One comes from The Independent today, “‘Exam Factories’ Conditions at School Causing Children to Self-Harm, Says New Research” and is about the serious issue of students there harming themselves due to the high pressure of exams. The other article, from yesterday, […]
How to Grow Good Teachers
Here is how those who have power could help teachers in public schools if they really wanted to. They are in no special order. I included these in the post about Nancie Atwell the other day, but I think they are worthy of standing alone. I didn’t want them overshadowed by the Nancie Atwell discussion. […]
Bill Gates’s Double Standards and High Tech High K-12 Schools
Here is a good example of what I would call double standards relating to traditional public schools and charter schools–more specifically the High Tech High K-12 Schools. High Tech High Charter Schools, computer/project driven schools, dot the landscape in California. They started out as one charter in 2000, run by San Diego business leaders and […]
The End of the Road for PUBLIC SCHOOL Teachers? I Don’t Think So!
Is it the end of the road for public school teachers? It seems like a bad sign when a respected teacher wins an award for teaching, and during a conversation afterwards on CNN, tells young people to go into teaching only if they enter the private sector. Last week Main teacher Nancie Atwell became the […]
The Stealth Campaign Against Public Schools and the Public Space
By Sheila Resseger, M.A. Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they will be future deficits or assets for our nation’s competitive needs. Jonathan Kozol Our children, our families, our neighborhoods, our public schools, and our democracy itself have become pawns […]