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Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

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How School Reform, Including Common Core, Has Devastated Children and Their Joy of Learning to Read

January 4, 2019 By Nancy Bailey 111 Comments

School reform has taken a toll on children starting in kindergarten (even preschool). There’s little doubt that children are being forced to learn to read earlier than ever before. The reading gap likely reflects the developmental differences found in children when they are forced to read too soon. Why are schools doing this? Forcing kindergarteners […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Common Core, Emily Hanford, Joy of Reading, McGraw Hill, National Council on Teacher Quality, National Reading Panel, phonics, reading, Reading Instruction, Reading Teachers, Reading Wonders, science of reading, teachers

Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap—How Ironic

November 29, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 3 Comments

Teachers have enough difficulties. Sometimes you find an article so full of hubris and irony it cannot be ignored. Several weeks ago, I criticized a series of reports about reading by journalist Emily Hanford. Hanford claimed teachers didn’t understand reading instruction and that their education schools failed to teach them what they should know. I made […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Colleges of Education, Common Core, Emily Hanford, phonics, reading, Reading Instruction, Susan Pimental

My Blogging Anniversary: How Has School Reform Changed in Five Years?

August 21, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 17 Comments

I recently passed the five-year anniversary of when I started writing my blog. What has changed? In this post, I analyze some of the issues I’ve written about over the years. Then, I thank you for your support. Change or lack of change in education can seem dark and foreboding, but there’s a great deal […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 5th year anniversary, charter schoos, class size, Common Core, data, early childhood education, reading, recess, retention, Social Emotional Learning, special education, standardized testing, Technology, the arts, vouchers

Preparing Teachers to Teach Reading: What Happened?

May 31, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 13 Comments

It’s easier to be ideological if you don’t have children sitting in front of you day after day. When you’re trying an approach and it’s not working, you have to back up and say, ‘I have to try something else.’ You can’t say [students] don’t fit the program. ~Dottie Fowler, a 15-year veteran teacher, 1998 […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Alternative reading programs, Common Core, dyslexia, Education Week, NCLB, Race to the Top, reading, Reading Preparation Programs, Teach for America, The Learning First Alliance

Stealing Vocational Dreams: Pushing Career Education Too Soon

May 3, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 9 Comments

If you have a middle school student, chances are the school they’re attending is already discussing career options. While there’s always been a place at this age for discussing a child’s hopes and dreams for the future, the push to make career-ready children is creating a lot of anxiety among parents. Much of this involves […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Career Education, college and career ready, Common Core, Middle School, Naviance, Online Learning, Preadolescence, Preadolescent Development, Preteens, Smarter Balanced Assessments, Spark, Surveys

Elephant in the Room: It’s the Tech Takeover, NOT Common Core

January 18, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 16 Comments

We are in danger of losing public schools and it’s all about “disruption” and technology. The federal government is leading the way. Common Core State Standards were unproven and costly. I hate what Common Core did to children. Common Core and other school problems are still worth discussing. But technology and its overwhelming impact on […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: "Disruptive" Technology, Betsy DeVos, Common Core, Rethinking Public Schools, Tech Revolution, Tech Transformation of Public Education, Technology in Schools

Teach Cursive Writing! Why It’s Important for Children Including Those with Dyslexia

January 13, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 21 Comments

Cursive writing is important for many reasons, and its loss in America’s classrooms should raise concerns. Cursive not only differs from print in the way it looks, it connects letters to words in a meaningful and productive way. It has been shown to assist children with reading difficulties like dyslexia. All students benefit by learning […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: attention, Common Core, Cursive Writing, diaries, dyslexia, focus, handwriting, Journals, Laptops, reading difficulties, spatial relationship, spelling, Technology, visual memory, visual perception, visual synthesis, Visual-motor coordination, writing

The Best Gift for Children: Saying NO to Summit Online Learning

December 22, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 3 Comments

During this holiday and Christmas season, salute the fine parents of Cheshire, Connecticut who said NO to Summit online learning! Theresa Commune said her 11-year-old son just wanted more attention from teachers than he was getting. “They need teachers to get them to love learning at this stage,” she said. Especially great is that parent […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Chan Zuckerberg, charter schools, Cheshire Connecticut, Common Core, Online Charter Schools, Personalized Learning, self-directed instruction, Social Emotional Learning, Student Privacy, Summit Learning, teachers

California’s Reading Crisis: Why Aren’t U.S. Kids Reading Well?

December 10, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 8 Comments

Children in California are not reading well. The New York Times reports that lawyers are suing the state on behalf of three schools, one a charter, for not following state literacy experts who are concerned about students learning English, those with disabilities, and African American and Hispanic students. Here are some thoughts when it comes […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: California, child health care, child homelessness, Child Hunger, civil rights, Common Core, libraries, phonics, public schools, reading, School Librarians, school libraries, U.S. reading

USDOE Special Ed. Director Nominee’s Ties to Common Core and Personalized Learning

November 26, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 6 Comments

President Trump recently nominated Johnny Collett from Kentucky to be the assistant secretary of education for special education and rehabilitation services for the U.S. Department of Education. Collett once taught high school as a special education teacher, though it is unclear if his college major is special education. But, unlike Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, he […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Betsy DeVos, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, charter schools, Common Core, Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Deregulating IDEA, Johnny Collett, Online Charter Schools, Personalized Learning, Regulations, special education, Special Education Compliance, USDOE Special Education Director

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