Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris! How refreshing to hear a President speak of uniting the country and saving America’s democratic institutions. One of the largest institutions is the public school system, run by local school boards, supported by the states, with oversight and administration by the federal government. President Biden […]
Play v. Reading: How Flawed Thinking About Preschool Has Become Accepted Practice
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 One education topic that every politician running for office mentions is preschool for all. What do they mean? What do they think preschool should be […]
What Preschool Isn’t: Waterford UPSTART and Any Other Online Program!
No one can deny the importance of early learning. We have years of research by developmental psychologists and early childhood education researchers built on findings to help us understand how preschoolers learn. We need to fund adequate preschools so students get a good introduction to the joy of formal learning. Researchers have known for some […]
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 […]
Common Core Kindergarten Reading—A Disservice to Children!
An article in U.S. News and World Report written by Robert Pondiscio, a journalist turned fifth grade teacher for a while (how he became a teacher is unclear), is entitled, “No Time to Lose” and “Early Reading Isn’t a Threat to Kindergarten, Nor is Common Core.” Pondiscio is now a senior advisor to a charter […]
Are Today’s Children Developmentally Different from Children in the Past?
Does research show us that young children have evolved to where they can learn faster? Are they smarter than they used to be? No! There is no research to indicate that a child’s brain has evolved over the years to where they need a learning environment that is more difficult from the past. What has […]