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Strauss: Exercise in math class? How one math teacher gets kids moving while studying
I recently published a post titled “Why so many students can’t sit still in school today” that was very popular with readers. The piece mentioned Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder but another factor, as well: the idea expressed by pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom that academic pressures in school have reduced or eliminated the time that kids have for recess, physical educati
Superintendents forced to tell parents their schools are failing, even though they aren’t
Many parents in Washington state are being told that their public schools are being considered as failing — even though it isn’t true. They are learning this from the superintendents of their school districts, who don’t want to do it but are being forced to. What’s going on? Last April, the U.S. Education Department yanked […]
Campbell Brown put on notice by teachers union
I recently wrote a post about how Campbell Brown’s new advocacy group, the Partnership for Educational Justice, had used on its Web site the exact wording of the slogan of the current branding campaign of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union. It turns out that the AFT has trademarked its slogan, […]
Are teachers unions really the scourge of the nation?
Are teachers unions really the scourge of the nation? You might think so if you listen to some reformers who link union-negotiated job protections for teachers to poor academic performance of students in high-poverty schools. But does the data actually support that contention? Bruce D. Baker, a professor of education and leadership in the Graduate […]
AUG 14
Blame the Common Core for Miley Cyrus, phones in toilets, and … everything else?
Who knew?! #ThanksCommonCore #CommonCore pic.twitter.com/E6CfRYOR8X — Thanks Common Core (@thnkscommoncore) July 25, 2014 If you thought that “bullies, playground predators, or school violence” were the most dangerous things school children face, you are, according to the Family Research Council, missing the “spreading, hidden nightmare facing” millions of students as they start a new school year.
Scoring error on one SOL test question meant hundreds of Virginia students who failed really passed
More than 500 students in Virginia just learned that their score on the Standards of Learning Civics & Economics test they took last spring rose when it was discovered that the answer to one question was incorrectly scored. For 224 students, getting credit for one more question meant the difference between failing the exam and […]
No, third grade is not the year when kids go from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’
No doubt you’ve heard this: ‘Third grade is the year when students go from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’ The truth is not so clear-cut, as explained here by Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English who now supervises student teachers for Portland State University. She also […]
Seven things teachers are sick of hearing from school reformers
Teachers have long been accustomed to “going along to get along” but increasingly are raising their voices to protest standardized test-based education reforms of the last decade that they see as harmful to students. In this post, Georgia teacher Ian Altman explains what he and his colleagues are really sick of hearing from reformers. Altman […]
AUG 13
Michelle Rhee to step down as StudentsFirst chief, take ‘next step in life’
(Update: Confirmation of Rhee plans to step down; Rhee comments) Michelle Rhee has been the most visible star in the nation’s galaxy of school reformers since she became D.C. schools chancellor in 2007, abruptly quit in 2010, and started an advocacy organization called StudentsFirst in 2011. Now, she is preparing to step down soon from her […]
Campbell Brown responds to critics (including me)
I have recently published several posts about a new effort led by former CNN journalist Campbell Brown to eliminate or restrict teacher and other job protections for teachers. (You can see them here, here, here and here.) Brown has appeared on numerous television shows recently arguing that legal job protections for teachers have a negative […]
AUG 12
Readers’ questions for Education Secretary Arne Duncan
I recently published a post about a teacher in Charleston, S.C., who asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan a gutsy question during a video chat Duncan had with educators. Here are some questions that readers have since sent in that they would like to see Duncan answer. Patrick Hayes, a fifth-grade teacher and director of EdFirstSC, […]
Mourning Robin Williams and ‘teacher John Keating’
Education historian and activist Diane Ravitch wrote the following in memory of Robin Williams. By Diane Ravitch We have become accustomed in recent years to seeing films in which teachers are shown as lazy, greedy slugs. This fits nicely with the corporate reform narrative that seeks to strip all honor, dignity, and rights from teachers. […]
Kids can have depression, too, even toddlers. Here’s how to tell.
The death of Robin Williams, who was reported to be suffering from severe depression and is believed to have committed suicide, brings into stark relief the very serious but too-often-ignored issue of depression in people of all ages, including teenage students and toddlers. Childhood depression is characterized this way in a brief issued by the […]
AUG 11
New NEA leader to nation’s educators: Revolt, ignore ‘stupid’ reforms
To call the woman who is about to take the helm of the National Education Association “outspoken” would be something of an understatement. Lily Eskelsen GarcÃa, who will take over next month as president of the largest teachers union in the country (and, for that matter, the largest union of any kind in the country), […]
How high school changed Robin Williams’ life
The late Robin Williams credited his “gestalt high school” in California with sparking his interest in entertainment. Born in Chicago, he grew up in Michigan, where he attended the private Detroit Country Day School. He told interviewers that he was bullied by classmates when he was young because he was overweight, and he played at […]
Robin Williams’ commencement speech in ’96 film ‘Jack’: ‘In the end none of us has very long on this Earth’
In the 1996 film Jack, Robin Williams played a boy who ages four times faster than normal. As his high school valedictorian, he delivers the commencement speech at graduation, telling his classmates to enjoy their lives and to “make your lives spectacular. “In the end none of us has very long on this Earth,” he […]
50 ways schools ‘cheat’ on high-stakes standardized tests
In March 2013, Atlanta Schools superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other educators and administrators were charged in a 65-count indictment on racketeering charges in what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to cheat on high-stakes standardized tests. Those 35 were just a fraction of the more than 175 principals and teachers found by state investigators in 2011 […]
‘I love when kids are smarter than tests (which is most of the time)’
I love when kids are smarter than tests (which is most of the time). pic.twitter.com/ayJGquJy1D — Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) August 10, 2014
Why race-based affirmative action in college admissions still matters
Last month I published a defense of race-based affirmative action for African-American students in college admissions by Richard Rothstein, research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. Here is a new piece by Rothstein, expanding […]
AUG 10
Arne Duncan’s new ‘top advisers’ (update)
(Update: Comment from Education Department) Throughout the first Obama administration and well into the second, many teachers and principals said they could not get a word in edgewise to Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his advisers, who plowed ahead with education reforms that many educators said blamed teachers for things that weren’t their fault and […]
AUG 09
A strange definition of a ‘bad’ teacher
Keoni Wright is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit organized by Campbell Brown’s education advocacy group that is seeking to overturn New York laws that provide tenure and other job protections to K-12 teachers. Brown has appeared on a number of television shows explaining her new endeavor, which will involve filing lawsuits in other states, […]
Why Princeton students who deserve A’s can’t get them — report
Here’s an interesting case of unintended consequences in education reform — in this case, grading policy at an Ivy League school. A decade ago the faculty at Princeton University adopted a grading policy that was intended to distinguish between good and great work but that wound up restricting the number of top grades professors handed […]
