Education Secretary Cardona focuses on reducing absenteeism, tutoring, and after-school programs. And he refers to raising the bar, which sounds like A Nation at Risk talk. Yet there are so many K12 issues that Cardona and the Biden administration could address, lead, and support the states and local school districts. Here are some educational issues […]
Science of Reading and EL Education: What is It?
School privatization was born of manufactured crisis, and one of the so-called crises today is reading instruction. Not that reading shouldn’t be debated and improved when it’s called for, especially for children experiencing learning disabilities. Still, the frenzy surrounding reading in this country has become fever-pitched. It has divided teachers who want to do what’s […]
Saving Public Schools: 23 Issues (At Least) to Ponder for 2024
Happy New Year! Caring for others shines through during the holidays. So, everyone has had time to think about the importance of public education and how we care about all of America’s children. Ten years ago, I wrote a book called Losing America’s Schools: The Fight to Reclaim Public Education. So, how’s it going? Here are […]
Will The Real Recess Stand Up? It’s NOT Playworks, Phys. Ed., Meditating, or Brain Breaks!
The lack of breaks for children and the misrepresentation of what constitutes recess continues to flourish. School reformers try unsuccessfully to replace recess. But recess is not Playworks, Phys.Ed., meditation, or Brain Breaks controlled by adults who tell children what to do, denying them the ability to learn academic and social skills that recess provides […]
Saving Kindergarten! Real Teachers Write the Kinderchat Guides with Real Solutions!
In 2022, co-authors Heidi Echternacht and Amy Murray wrote The Kinderchat Guide to the Classroom. They’re the founders of the famous #Kinderchat that started on Twitter years ago. Since NCLB, kindergarten has changed with demands far beyond what used to be considered developmentally appropriate. Many kindergarten teachers will recognize themselves facing a juggling act, satisfying […]
41 Ways a Big Lie Continues to Haunt America’s Public Schools
Forty years ago, Americans learned of A Nation at Risk, the troubling and mostly bogus report by the Reagan administration claiming public schools and teachers failed to produce students who were capable American workers. Berliner’s and Biddle’s The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools disproved the report, but it still […]
Grade Retention is Unnecessary!
Studies have linked dropout rates in Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina to the effects of grade retention, student discouragement, and school exclusion policies stimulated by high-stakes tests. ~Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and former President and CEO of the Learning […]
Where’s Evidence from The Reading League’s Corporate Sponsors?
The Reading League, which promotes the Science of Reading and evidence-based instruction, recently had a conference sponsored by companies (listed below) selling reading programs and materials, including online instruction. Where’s evidence these companies provide authentic research indicating they work? Some states and school districts now mandate the Science of Reading (Schwartz, 2022). They have ruled out […]
How PICTURE Books Help TEACH Comprehension and Phonics!
When he looks at the pictures, he’ll get so excited he’ll want to draw one of his own. He’ll ask for paper and crayons. ~Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond. If You Give A Mouse a Cookie Regarding how teachers teach reading, it’s alarming that pictures get a bad rap. One of the best […]
Raising the Bar on Kindergartners: A Nation at Risk Lives On
History is not kind to idlers. ~The Reagan administration’s A Nation at Risk (1983, p.7) In What Happened to Recess and Why are our Children Struggling in Kindergarten, Susan Ohanian writes about a kindergartner in a New York Times article who tells the reporter they would like to sit on the grass and look for […]