Ed. Week is having a live chat this Thursday afternoon, 3 to 4 ET, to discuss PARCC and Smarter Balanced accommodations for students with disabilities. They say this assessment will “offer the promise of more inclusion and self-sufficiency for students with special needs and English-language learners.” How any assessment is going to do all that […]
Can We Afford to Lay Off Public School Guidance Counselors?
Is there a movement to lay off guidance counselors, even college and career counselors, in public schools? With the “everyone should attend college” movement, you wouldn’t think so. In fact, the need would seem to be to hire more counselors. Still, there are signs…. See here in Michigan for example. Or here in California. Or […]
Always Give Students a Chance
In my freshman year in college I signed up for Art 101. The class was merry and a nice respite from all the reading and testing involved with hard core basic subjects freshmen take. Make no mistake I was no future Rembrandt. But I enjoyed the class so much that I boldly signed up for […]
The Continuing Bizarre Message That We MUST Test Students with Severe Disabilities—Say NO!
I wish I were a judge and had some of these ed. reformers who believe tests are more important than children come before me. Honestly. I’d send them to jail. Mandates written to play Gottcha with children’s services, intentionally designed to get rid of services and teachers, are wrong. America shouldn’t be the place to […]
Brown v. Board of Education—Still Further Apart than Ever Before On Its Anniversary
On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education I don’t believe we are working on the issue of school integration in the least when it comes to public schools. Here are the two biggest examples: 1. In 2010, the UCLA Civil Rights Project determined that charter schools “isolate students by race and class” yet charter […]
The Little Engine That Derailed—How Aligning Books to Skills Kills the Joy of Reading
It is one thing for a child to read The Little Engine That Could for the pleasure of the story and quite another for her to comprehend the inner workings of a locomotive. ~Joanne Yatvin, former public school educator, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, and a former member of […]
Why Teachers Quit and What Administrators Would Do if They Wanted to Keep Them
A parent I know who is a strong crusader for goodness and public schooling told me about a Forbes article, “The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About to Quit – And How You Can Keep Them.” How does this list apply to teachers? How do the negative business reasons described by Forbes affect […]
Ode to Moms I Admire Who Fight Draconian Ed. Reform
I am not a poet and I know it, but here I go ith. Here’s to the Moms who fight Common Core. They want it thrown out the classroom doors…. It’s a bore! And we don’t adore. Here’s to the Moms who support all the children, even those not their own. Treat yourself to tea […]
How Losing the Arts in Public Schools Hurts Students and Their Future Careers
President G.W. Bush loves to paint and has recently gotten recognition for his artwork, but does he know how his administration squelched the arts for millions of public school students, thereby also stifling their chances of a good career in the arts? That’s right. There are jobs in the arts! NCLB included the arts. It […]
Louis C.K.’s Comments—Good For Public Schools—or Not?
There seems to be two camps in education. One is happy that Louis C.K. spoke out about Common Core and testing. They have posted and re-posted on Facebook his stint on David Letterman. The other side is not happy about the attention celebrities get if the topic is education. They believe the celebs only distract […]