The New York Times shared the above terrifying statistic today . We already know the impact that out-of-school factors have on student achievement (see The Best Places To Learn What Impact A Teacher (& Outside Factors) Have On Student Achievement ). Pile on this additional economic stress, and the fact that this means many of our high school students will be taking either over-or-under the table
Q&A Collections: Assessment is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. All Classroom Q&A posts on Assessment (from the past nine years!) are described and linked to in this compilation post. Here’s an excerpt from one of them:
geralt / Pixabay Things are likely to get a bit rough for us teachers, our students, and their families during the upcoming school year. Right now, there are over sixty posts at my Education Week column, including commentaries, videos and infographics from over one-hundred educators sharing their experiences with distance learning. Check them out at School Closures & the Coronavirus Crisis . And,
ractapopulous / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL: Teachers Union OKs Strikes If Schools Reopen Without Safety Measures In Place is from NPR. Did America Set Public Schools Up to Fail? is from New York Magazine. COVID-19 school guidance from Trump and the CDC paints teachers as villains is from NBC News. Influential national teache
Prawny / Pixabay Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Laura Gibbs who, I believe, creates the best teacher resources out there if you want to teach about folktales. I use her “tiny tales” when my Beginning and Intermediate English Language Learners write their own. Laura was kind enough to agree to write about them. I’m adding this post to A Beginning List Of The Best Folklore & Myth Sites .
I’m making a change in the content of the regular feature. In addition to sharing the top five posts that have received the most “hits” in the preceding seven days (though they may have originally been published on an earlier date), I will also include the top five posts that have actually appeared in the past week. Often, these are different posts. You might also be interested in IT’S THE THIRTE
geralt / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : A Small Georgia City Plans to Put Students in Classrooms This Week is from The New York Times. Here’s How Back To School Might Look In The New Normal is from NPR. What Will Schools Do When a Teacher Gets Covid-19? is from The NY Times. Closed cafeterias, ‘recess’ at your desk: School wil
Senator Tom Cotton did teachers everywhere a great service yesterday by making a ridiculous attack on The New York Times “1619 Project” and the fact that some school districts are using it to teach about slavery. You can read about his comments at Sen. Tom Cotton wants to take ‘The 1619 Project’ out of classrooms. His efforts have kept it in the spotlight. Now, we just have to introduce the Proje
JamesDeMers / Pixabay The Korean War began 70 years ago on June 25, 1950. You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About The Korean War .
Most people thought that the Paycheck Protection Program would help small businesses survive the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. They were surprised to learn that charter schools, which never lost government funding, scooped up some of the $660 billion. Guy Brandenburg posted the list of D.C. charter schools that picked up some dough from the PPP. Many of the D.C. charters are backed by t
Jan Resseger takes Trump and DeVos to task for ignoring the needs of students and adults in their headlong rush to reopen schools to prop up the economy in time for the election. In contrast to Obama, who reacted to the Newtown massacre with compassion, our current leaders are indifferent to the risks they seek to impose on other people’s children. Resseger cites some of the best articles that de
John Merrow has tried to figure out what will be need to open schools safely. He concludes that it will take lots of effort and energy and cooperation. What is needed is space, time, personnel, and resources. He suggests creative ways to get what is needed. Here are his thoughts about space. Open the link to read about his other ideas. Two priorities cannot be compromised or negotiated: 1) Keep e
David Berliner has devoted his life to the study of education. He has achieved the pinnacle of his profession as a researcher and statistician. He is currently Regents Professor Emeritus at the College of Education at Arizona State University. His list of honors is too long to mention. I welcome his original contributions to the blog and am honored to present them to you. His title for this post
Happy birthday, Gerard Manley Hopkins. When I was a student at Wellesley College, I would sometimes take solitary walks around Lake Waban and think deep thoughts. As I walked, trampling the leaves, I would often recite out loud Gerard Manley Hopkins’ beautiful poem, “Spring and Fall to a Young Child.” This description of Hopkins appeared on Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac.” Today is a bi
David Dayen writes a post called Unsanitized for The American Prospect. Here is today’s report: First Response The HEALS Act — a $1 trillion piece of legislation so comically in hock to corporate interests that one of the initials in the acronym stands for “liability protection” — was released yesterday. This was done in a super annoying format where separate committee chairs released their own t
Open the link here to read Randi Weingarten’s speech to the AFT Convention. Here is a summary from the AFT: Weingarten’s State of the Union address zeroed in on the three crises facing America—a public health crisis, an economic crisis and a long-overdue reckoning with racism. She detailed how these crises are being made worse by President Trump and emphasized the urgency of the November election
Mercedes Schneider was absolutely delighted to learn that ProPublica created a search engine so that anyone could learn where the federal $660 billion or so was spent. Mercedes is a master at following the money, and she guides you here to show that you can do it too! She writes: During the coronavirus pandemic, with the federal government offering Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to busin
Laurie Roberts is a columnist for the Arizona Republic who has written frequently about frauds in the charter and voucher sectors. When I was writing Slaying Goliath , I found her reporting and her sharp to be invaluable. She read Carol Burris’s article about the Network for Public Education study of charters that double dipped in two different pots of federal funding, and she thought that their
Parents in North Carolina filed a lawsuit against the state’s voucher program on grounds that it discriminates against them because of their religious beliefs. Through the voucher program, the state sends public funds to religious schools that do not accept the children of these plaintiffs because of their religious beliefs. Therefore the plaintiffs argue that the voucher program encourages relig
Jim Blew was hired by Betsy DeVos for a key role at the U.S Department of Education, having worked at the far-right Walton Family Foundation, which has a strong commitment to privatization, charter schools, Teach for America, and union-busting. He told education writers that the Department of Education was not likely to grant waivers for next spring’s annual federal testing, despite a year of con
The AFT keeps close watch on legislative action. I thought you might want to read what Randi wrote about Mitch (The Grim Reaper, as he calls himself) McConnell’s bill in the Senate. There’s not nearly enough funding to enable
