Let me say up front, that I don’t think Common Core State Standards are shoes that fit any child, but the standards are especially insidious for students with disabilities, who were promised something different with the original Public Law 94-142. Recently I read an article in Teaching Exceptional Children from a year ago. It was entitled, “Meeting […]
How to Be a Nice Teacher When You’re Mad and Treated Badly
I wanted to write something that had to do with teachers in relationship to Martin Luther King Day and this is what I came up with. Teachers are genuinely nice people. If you work with children you teach them to be nice and respectful to others. Most people go into teaching because they are happy […]
New Jersey, the Principalship and New Leaders for New Schools
Who are New Leaders for New Schools? Education bloggers wrote fervently this weekend about the suspension of four principals in Newark, New Jersey who spoke out against the “One Newark” plan to reform schools http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/12/18/one-newark-reform-plan-proves-divisive-even-before-official-release/. The plan is similar to what is happening in cities across the country other than the fact that they have […]
Goodbye to More Real Public Schools in Memphis—Will Yours be Next?
There are few things sadder to me than to see small children standing in front of a microphone begging to keep their schools open. But that’s Memphis. It’s also Chicago, Philadelphia and New York and on and on. If you don’t yet have charter schools taking over your public schools don’t blink. They’re coming. They […]
So Long Zero Tolerance—Now is the Time to HELP Troubled Kids—Modern Family Thinks So
With all the bad news in education, it is good to see the Obama administration taking steps to address zero tolerance http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/index.html. They are finally attempting to put to rest the outrageous arrests and suspensions involving innocent or misguided children—looking at all of them as criminals. This will help improve public schools. This should stop […]
Larger Classes Help Students with Disabilities? Who Does the Illinois Bd. of Ed. Think It’s Fooling?
The Illinois Board of Education believes larger general education classes will help children with disabilities http://action.aft.org/c/468/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7727. Restricting the size or providing self-contained classes would do them a disservice. Really? Shame on them! Who do they think they are fooling? Consider this profound statement: “The elimination of state requirements specific to class size will best ensure […]
More Weird New Words for the School Reform Education Vocabulary List
Six months ago I started my website/blog and one of my posts included strange education vocabulary. Some of the words used to mean something relevant and different from their meaning today. But most of these words have been used by education reformers to change the nature of public schooling. Many of the words or phrases […]
STEM and Common Core—How Much SCIENCE are Elementary Students Really Getting?
Even though students today, in reality, sound capable to tackle STEM jobs, what about the students of tomorrow? With the heavy push for high-stakes testing, the questionable negative rhetoric by the Obama Administration and others about STEM, and the dramatic changes to the curriculum with Common Core State Standards, is this country going to wake […]
The Vanderbilt Study about Gifted Students
My post, Shunning gifted Students in America—Isn’t it Time to Pay Attention? generated a lot of conversation. Many are worried about how to serve these students in public school. So when I ran across this research today out of Vanderbilt University, I jumped for joy! Dr. David Lubinski and his co-authors, Harrison J. Kell and […]
Common Core and Ability Grouping—Ignoring Critical Questions
Common Core does not honestly tackle a problem that should be front and center in our public schools. How do we address ability grouping? Should students with learning disabilities be educated separately or in the regular class? Do autistic children learn faster mainstreamed or with specialized help in a self-contained classroom or separate school? Are […]