Many of our elected officials have virtually handed the keys to our schools over to corporate interests. Presidential commissions on education are commonly chaired by the executives of large companies. ~Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards” (p. 15, 1999) Back to Basics is back! Those famous words […]
The Dangers of Eliminating Teacher Preparation
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 […]
Rating Common Core Math Textbooks—Isn’t THIS a National Curriculum?
A new report in Education Week discusses a “Consumer Reports-like” nonprofit group that will now evaluate math textbooks from different companies online. If you are teaching math and want to know which books are best—books aligned to the Common Core—you can go to Edreports.org and they will apparently tell you, eventually, which books, or book, […]
The Doctor/Music Connection and The Terrible Disregard for Music in Public Schools
How does music help prepare students for life? Ask all the prestigious doctors in Boston! The Boston Globe has a fascinating piece by Christoph Westphal about the importance of music to becoming and being a doctor. Westphal, himself an amateur cellist and physician/scientist, recently went to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) welcoming its new […]
Announcing My New Website Format and Blog!
My new website covers Activism and School Curriculum and I still have the Blog. It is more manageable now. Point and clink on the title and the link should appear. The Activism site focuses on groups , organizations and people who are currently working to oppose the harmful reform taking place in our public schools. […]