Most of us are concerned when we hear of a credit card data breach in a store or company where we do business. Many parents are also troubled about academic and social-emotional behavioral online assessment data collected about their children in school. But what about your child surrendering their personal and sensitive information in an […]
Love OUR Public Schools: Children & Their Teachers!
On this one-year anniversary of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, I am remembering the students and their parents and teachers, especially those who lost loved ones. MSD represents a great public school. Beyond the sadness of that day, we saw what a good public school can be. We saw loving, supportive parents. […]
How NCLB is Still Destroying Reading for Children
NCLB was a bi-partisan bill signed into law in 2002 during the Bush administration’s push for school reform. We now recognize how punitive the bill was, its troubling use of one-size-fits-all standardized testing to demonize and close public schools, the punitive AYP and “highly qualified” teacher credentialing changes, the unrealistic predictions that all children would […]
The Privatization of Teaching Teachers How to Teach Reading: Cashing In on Kids!
Wondering about all the recent articles claiming teachers don’t know how to teach reading, and their education schools are failing them? It appears to be about nonprofits! These groups are competing with universities. They promise to better prepare teachers to teach reading, for a fee, of course! But there’s no proof they will do teacher […]
Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education
A charter school can be a community school, and vice versa. ~National Center for Community Schools There’s new school management these days that might seem nice, but scratch beneath the service and it is privatization and the theft of America’s democratic public schools. There are two points in this blog post. Community schools might be […]
Leaving Childhood Out in the Rain!
Why do corporate CEOs, foundations, and policymakers want kindergartners to learn more advanced material at a faster rate? Why is this important to them? If children are made to grow up quickly, what happens to childhood? Why are they against play and art for children in public schools? Why do they push children to read […]
The Headband Obsession With Student Concentration
Headbands created to collect information about student attending behavior are the latest trend. Adults monitor and gather information from students’ brains to see if they stay focused on schoolwork. Here’s the Vulcan Post that discusses Neeuro, from just one company jumping on the headband bandwagon. This falls into the social-emotional “good behavior” and “self-regulation” learning […]
Social-Emotional Learning and Teachers Students Love? Teachers in Los Angeles!
Social-emotional learning (SEL) in schools makes many parents and teachers nervous. We worry there’s an ulterior motive to collect behavioral data on how children think and act, and that the ultimate goal is to privatize public schools and track students. Talk about transforming our public schools away from cognitive learning to SEL is everywhere! Those […]
Showcasing Tolerance and Kindness in America’s Public School Students Through Their Writings
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I thought it would be nice to promote children and teens around the country who have demonstrated tolerance and kindness through essays. Our public schools and public school teachers nurture that hope. Our children learn from […]
Special Education: How Has Teacher Preparation Changed?
Sometimes parents of students with disabilities will complain that teachers don’t know how to teach special education. This generalization is difficult to pin down. What specifically makes parents believe this? What is it about their student’s teacher that makes them so critical? With more student placement in inclusion classes, it also isn’t always clear if […]