“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (New International Version) A while back I was talking with a friend about school problems, and she surprised me by saying “America doesn’t love its children!” I was taken aback. I’d never […]
The Soulless Practice of Using Students with Disabilities to Fire Teachers—Remembering a Better World
How’s this for compassion in the new public school accountability world? By now most people have read about the Ethan Rediske situation in Orlando. The 11 year old, blind, with brain damage and cerebral palsy, as he lay dying in a Hospice, was required to take an alternative version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test […]
Huge Class Sizes and the Increase in Student Mental Health Problems—Connect the Dots!
The New York Times has an article having to do with large class sizes. It’s all about the push to put more kids in classrooms and schools with fewer teachers and specialists. This is happening around the country in every school. It is happening without any thought to the recent tragic events in our public […]
If You Feel Like Grandma Who Got Run Over By a Reindeer—Don’t Despair!
If your child is doing well and you are happy about public school you probably don’t need to read any further. If your house is decorated well enough to win a Martha Stewart contest, and your Christmas dinner was cooked and frozen in neat Zip Lock bags and Rubbermaid containers weeks ago, then you can […]
Hey! Who’s that With the Baby Grand on their Back?
Memphis and the surrounding suburbs have been through quite a lot of “churning” with the school merger of the city schools with the county schools. Most everyone spots the corporate fingerprints. They’re all over the place. Chain charters, Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, Common Core, etc. are, with the help of Stand for […]
Less High-Stakes Testing—More Focus on Mental Health and Personalized Schooling
This past week saw yet again two horrible instances of violence—once again at schools. Two popular teachers are gone, along with a troubled student. Another student will possibly be tried as an adult and prosecuted. Again we wonder whether public schools do much to help disturbed students. In both these situations, unless something new pops […]
The Public School System and Mental Health Services
Two days ago we had another grim reminder that schools, like communities, are vulnerable to troubled individuals, often young people, possessing weapons. These events strike fear in the hearts and minds of parents and add fuel to the fire when it comes to the gun debate. While the gun debate goes on…. Most people […]
Remembering Dr. Bracey in All the Public School Turmoil
I was thinking the other day about Gerald Bracey. Dr. Bracey is always an inspiration and a researcher who knew how to help the rest of us make sense of information, often in upbeat, even humorous ways. I own almost all of his books. The ones about research were and still are very informative. And […]