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You think you know what teachers do. Right? Wrong.
You went to school so you think you know what teachers do, right? You are wrong. Here’s a piece explaining all of this from Sarah Blaine, a mom, former teacher and full-time practicing attorney in New Jersey who writes at her parentingthecore blog, where this first appeared. By Sarah Blaine We all know what teachers […]
Jon Stewart rips bill allowing teachers, parents to hit kids hard enough to bruise
Put this in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: A legislator in Kansas was pushing legislation to allow teachers and parents to whack kids hard enough to bruise. Why? Out of the mistaken belief that beating up children is an effective disciplinary method. The good news is that a legislative committee just killed the bill, but there is […]
How some school ‘data walls’ violate U.S. privacy law
(Clarification: Education Department says its upcoming guidance will not be about data walls but about student privacy in general.) After I wrote last week about “data walls” in public schools that often include lists of students and their test scores, readers asked whether such public displays of academic “achievement” — without parental permission — violate the […]
Anti-testing groups form alliance to bring sanity to education policy
With resistance to standardized test-obsessed school reform growing around the country, three dozen local, state and national organizations and individuals have now banded together in an alliance to expand efforts to bring sanity to education policy. The alliance, which is called Testing Resistance and Reform Spring, will support a range of public education and mobilizing tactics […]
A deeply misguided lawsuit about teachers and students
An important trial is under way in California that is ostensibly about one thing — protecting students — but is really about attacking teachers unions and the due process rights for teachers. This post about what is really going on with Vergara v. California was written by Ben Spielberg, a Teach For America alum and […]
FEB 20
True or false: Students can pray in public school any time they want
True or false? Students and anybody else in a public school have a right to quietly pray any time they want. It’s true, but you wouldn’t know it if you listen to lawmakers in Virginia who, according to this Post story, are pushing legislation that would ”codify students’ right to pray before, during and after school; […]
What if Google ran the college application process?
If you have ever been through the college admissions process, or your child has, or, if anybody you have ever known has been remotely connected to it, then you know how crazy it is. In this post, Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for enrollment management and marketing at DePaul University in Chicago writes about the […]
#ResistTFA popular on Twitter
A student-led campaign against Teach For America took to Twitter this week and has been proving to be popular, at one point more so than tweets with the Olympic hashtag. The Twitter effort is being led by Students United for Public Education, a grassroots, student-led organization founded by Stephanie Rivera, a Rutgers University Graduate School of […]
FEB 19
Text of U-Md. president’s letter about massive computer security breach
A computer security breach at the University of Maryland has compromised more than 300,000 personal records for faculty, staff and students who have received identification cards. Here’s the letter about the breach from university President Wallace D. Loh released on Wednesday: Dear students, faculty, and staff of the University of Maryland (at College Park and Shady Grove): […]
Mom to officials: Stop forcing severely disabled kids to take high-stakes tests
Earlier this month I wrote about Andrea Rediske, who had fought a long battle with the Florida Department of Education over a requirement that her blind and brain-damaged son, Ethan, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, take state-mandated standardized tests. Rediske managed to win a waiver for her son, but recently, while he lay dying in […]
How children learn to read
How do children really learn to read? Answering that question is Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English who now supervises student teachers for Portland State University. She also writes books for teachers. By Joanne Yatvin A few months before my fifth birthday my parents enrolled me in kindergarten. […]
The science behind figure skating, the half pipe and other Olympic sports
The National Science Foundation has for years been partnering with NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, to present a series of 10 videos and other materials explaining the science, technology, engineering, design and mathematics behind Olympic winter sports. The stories in the videos are told by athletes as well as engineers and scientists. Below […]
FEB 18
Does Common Core’s focus on ‘close reading’ make sense?
Depending on whom you ask, the Common Core English Language Arts standards are either exactly what U.S. schools need, or exactly what they don’t need. Here’s an argument for the latter opinion, by Aaron Barlow, an associate professor of English at the New York City College of Technology. This was first published on the Academe Blog, […]
Teacher to 3rd graders: I apologize for having to ‘quantify you with a number’
Barnett Berry is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Teaching Quality, a national nonprofit organization based in Carrboro, North Carolina aimed at transforming the teaching profession. He wrote to me about a colleague of his, Wendi Pillars, a teacher who wrote an apology to young students who are being forced to take […]
FEB 17
The 2014 Presidents’ Day quiz
Here it is: the 2014 Presidents’ Day quiz. How much don’t you know? 1) Which president was the first to be born a U.S. citizen? a) James Madison b) Martin Van Buren c) John Quincy Adams d) Andrew Jackson 2) The Monroe Doctrine, introduced in 1823, declared that no European nation should from then on […]
Veteran teacher: I’m sick of being called ‘burned out’
A veteran teacher sent me the following e-mail and agreed to let me publish it without her name. I thought it spoke to what a lot of veteran teachers are feeling, so here it is: I had a first-year teacher use the phrase “burned out” regarding some of the veteran teachers in my building recently. […]
FEB 16
Why Presidents’ Day is slightly strange
Most federal holidays are clear-cut. On the Fourth of July, for example, Americans celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. On the other hand, Presidents’ Day is a slightly strange holiday for three main reasons: *There is no universal agreement on the actual name of the holiday. * There is no universal agreement on […]
Do college professors marginalize themselves?
New York Times columnist Nick Kristof just wrote a piece arguing that there are ”fewer public intellectuals on American university campuses today than a generation ago” and one of the reasons is that “Ph.D. programs have fostered a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience.” Is he right? Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham answers […]
Arne Duncan heads the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game class
Arne Duncan may have missed his calling: The 6-foot-5 education secretary was the star of Friday night’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game in New Orleans, “winning” the MVP award with 20 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. Granted, not all of the competition was professional — actor Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” radio […]
FEB 15
Look who’s advocating for public schools
The National School Boards Association is launching a campaign in support of public education — with some unexpected help. Called “Stand Up4Public Schools,” the campaign’s goal is to persuade association members to be more forceful advocates for public schools and locally controlled school districts at a time when, in the name of reform, many school […]