How much trust do parents place in their child’s teacher? Maybe more than you think. The BATS were celebrating Thanksgiving this week with Thank You tweets about teachers and other school personnel. As a nation, I hope we can return to the time when we trusted teachers to be the good and decent professionals they […]
Students with Serious Behavioral Disabilities and Inclusion: Effect on Students WITHOUT Disabilities
Contrary to Arne Duncan, and the latest DOE report claiming IEPs should be written the same for everyone, students with behavioral/emotional disabilities–should have the right to services to address their problems. If their difficulties go unaddressed, left to the general education teacher with a class of 30 students, it could affect not only the student […]
Transforming Teacher Preparation—Gates Style
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have a quote on their website that says “Nobody knows teaching like teachers.” If they believe that, why don’t they let teachers teach the way they know best? Or, why don’t they ask them what they need to teach better? Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Gates are going to now […]
Nine Reasons to Look Down on Think it Up
I missed the Think it Up glitz the other night. But I have seen some of the video. So what’s wrong with the wealthy wanting to crowdsource Americans to donate to student/teacher projects that will change the world? Anthony Cody writes a piece about Think it Up on his blog “Living in Dialogue,” and I […]
IEPs for All—Or Something Else?
Some of us imagined a public school system that would drop special education labels and look at all children individually and collectively for their strengths and what they need to learn. We thought of it as Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) for everyone. You will likely hear about “IEPs for All” in the future, if you […]
Student Socialization in Public Schools
Socialization you could say is how a child interacts with their peers. There are many definitions, but in school, socialization mostly involves how children play and get along with each other. We think of recess when considering socialization. We wonder how much socialization children miss when they don’t get recess. Public schools can go a […]
Teacher Concerns about Age Discrimination and the Teacher Shortage
Many teachers raised concerns about age discrimination relating to the current teacher shortage after a recent post. I gathered what I had learned and I have added additional information. I also provide links at the bottom to other important articles about this topic. It is important to state that older teachers want to encourage young […]
Teacher Age Discrimination During a So-Called Teacher Shortage
While I wrote this post nine years ago, I’m still getting heartbreaking comments and emails from veteran teachers with good records and credentials who cannot find teaching positions though we’re still told there’s a teacher shortage. When I first wrote this post in 2015, Jeb Bush was 62, Hillary Clinton was 67, Donald Trump was […]
Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?
There’s mindfulness for teachers and mindfulness for students. There’s mindfulness in the UK and mindfulness in the USA. You can find groups that will train teachers and students about mindfulness around the world. But is mindfulness being used to push students and teachers to be robotic? Is it meant to cover up the problems in […]
Using African Americans to Condemn Special Education: The Mixed-Up Message
For a long time special educators and the general public have heard that special education is racist. The story from the school reformers goes something like this: African American students are thrown into segregated special education classes because teachers don’t know how to teach, or they don’t have “high expectations.” If teachers request a special […]