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Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

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Raising the Bar on Kindergartners: A Nation at Risk Lives On

September 13, 2023 By Nancy Bailey 30 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: A Nation at Risk, advanced placement, child development, High Expectations, kindergarten, Raising the Bar on Kindergarten, school reform

Problem-Solving through Play: What Children Miss with Age-Inappropriate Expectations

June 11, 2023 By Nancy Bailey 2 Comments

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. ~Fred Rogers Lately, when do children get chances to solve problems through unstructured play? How much time do they spend in school thinking, discovering, and figuring things […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: child development, early childhood education, high-stakes testing, play, play-based learning, problem solve, problem solving through unstructured play, recess, Unstructured Play

Force and Flunk, Tougher Kindergarten Lead to Parental Dissatisfaction with Public Schools

July 21, 2019 By Nancy Bailey 10 Comments

When children aren’t reading according to the corporate time frame set by Jeb Bush and his ilk (non-educators who want to privatize public education), parents become dissatisfied, even angry with public school officials and teachers when their children fail. The goal of many corporations is to end public education. They want privatization. To do this, […]

Filed Under: Featured, Uncategorized Tagged With: 3rd Grade Retention, child development, Finland and reading, Florida and 3rd Grade Retention, force and flunk, high-stakes testing, kindergarten, kindergarten and reading, Kindergarten is the New First Grade, retention in third grade

DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children

March 1, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 4 Comments

The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now. —David […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Betsy DeVos, child development, curriculum, early childhood education, False Claims About Public Schools, play, School Privatization, Technology

What’s Behind Increased Teaching of Self-Regulation in Children?

January 11, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 7 Comments

It’s normal to expect children to pay attention and learn good behavior. It’s part of growing up. But self-regulatory learning (SRL) forced on children so they will be computer learners is a different story. Why is there such a drive to make children more independent and self-sufficient? How is it justifiable to push students to […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: child development, Computer Learning, Self-Regulatory Learning

Prepping for Prepping–Prepping for Kindergarten

September 4, 2016 By Nancy Bailey 5 Comments

For $1,000, Santa Monica is prepping its children for kindergarten, because some of the parents there think that nothing says prepared better than preparing for the class that is supposed to prepare you for school. Unfortunately, for children of wealthy families, parents think they have to prep their kids to get into the $25,000 prep […]

Filed Under: Featured, Uncategorized Tagged With: child development, early reading, kindergarten, Kindergarten Prep

The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation

June 25, 2016 By Nancy Bailey 11 Comments

Wisconsin is thinking about letting anyone teach. No degree will be required to enter the classroom and work with students. Isn’t it bizarre to encourage young people to go to college but claim their teachers don’t need a college degree? Surely this is quackery. But I thought it would be a good time to do […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: assessment, Bibliotherapy, child development, Child Psychology, Classroom Management, counseling, dyslexia, Educational Theory, ELL Teachers, learning disabilities, Librarians, math, Other Subjects, Special Areas, special education, Speech and Language, Teacher Preparation, Technology, the arts

Using Teacher Shortage Talk to Justify Online Instruction

February 25, 2016 By Nancy Bailey 13 Comments

A few weeks ago Nick Morrison wrote an article for Forbes titled “Sleepwalking Our Way into the Teacher-Less Classroom.” He insists that technology, specifically the takeover by online instruction in schools, is not the real danger facing education. Instead, he claims it is a teacher shortage. According to Morrison, teachers leave due to pressure, and […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: child development, Colleges of Education, Good School Facilities, Older Teachers, Positive School Climate, Relay Graduate School of Education, school reform, Solutions For, Teach for America, Teacher Shortage, Teacher Voice, The Future of Education

Response to Intervention: Derailed!

November 13, 2015 By Nancy Bailey 11 Comments

Response to Intervention (RtI) is assessment all children get, starting early, in order to determine if they need special assistance to address learning disabilities. It has been plugged as “research” or “scientifically-based” programming to identify problems in young children so they can avoid special education. Those descriptors were often used, sometimes unjustifiably so, with programs […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: child development, learning disabilities, Response to Intervention, RTI, special education

Aristotle in Kindergarten—What Do Children Miss?

September 13, 2015 By Nancy Bailey 9 Comments

When I read in The New York Times about Matthew Levey, a Columbia alum and former McKinsey consultant, who is setting up the International Charter School of New York, I was stunned! The school is starting out with 70 kindergartners and first graders and will eventually go up to fifth grade. Mr. Levey starting a […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Aristotle in Kindergarten, Career Teachers, Charter School Operators, charter schools, child development, early childhood education, Pushing Children to Learn, The Berenstain Bears

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