is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Three students share a relatively positive picture of their full-time virtual learning experiences this year, highlighting that they think it saves time and that teachers are working hard to make it work well. Here are some excerpts:
Memed_Nurrohmad / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : Two School Districts Had Different Mask Policies. Only One Had a Teacher on a Ventilator. is from ProPublica. How de Blasio Backed Himself Into a Corner on Closing Schools is from The NY Times. As COVID-19 Soars in Many Communities, Schools Attempt To Find Ways Through the Crisi
Thanks to Katherine Schulten , I just learned about Verse By Verse , a fun Google tool that uses Artificial Intelligence to inspire uses to write poetry. You first choose famous American poets you like, and then you’re given a choice of what kind of poetry you’d like to write. Next, you write the first line, and then Artificial Intelligence uses the works of the poets you chose to inspire you in
I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . I’m starting with posts from earlier this year. NPR just published Enrollment Is Dropping In Public Schools Around the Country . According to the article, it sounds like the big drop is in kindergarten, which makes sense to me. I can’t
Usually, unless you have a paid subscription to Education Week, you’re able to access a few free articles each month and then everything is behind a paywall. However, all articles are free to everyone for the next two weeks! At
Our blog poet frequently favors with rhyme: Privatize the planet Privatize the planet Plunder it for gain Light the fire and fan it Mine the golden vein Privatize the water Sell it to the poor Privatize your daughter Sell her as a whore Privatize the wildlife Charge a viewing fee Like a Wall Street low life That is what you’ll be
The superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Susana Cordova, resigned abruptly, and her departure was followed by finger pointing. Denver has been a hot spot for “reformers,” and it’s school board elections attract DFER, “Education Reform Now,” and other big-money donors from out of state. I asked Jeanne Kaplan, a former DPS board member, to explain what’s going on. She sent me her comments and a
Laura Chapman recently wrote about the policy of holding third grade students back if they didn’t pass the third grade reading test. One result of this initiative is to raise fourth-grade reading scores on state tests and NAEP. She writes: There is a national read-by-grade three campaign. The practice of holding students back a grade is not new, but in the olden days it was never based on test sc
Parent advocate Carl J. Peterson writes here about a charter school in Los Angeles that figured out to game the system for more money and space. He writes that “Citizens of the World” collects signatures of parents who are not likely to apply for the school and uses them as expressions of intent to enroll. A Facebook post by Jirusha Lopez, the principal of COW’s Hollywood campus, provides some in
As anyone who read my book Left Back (2000) knows, I have long been persuaded of the value of phonetic instruction for early readers. I was a friend of the late Jeanne Chall, who began her career as a kindergarten teacher and eventually became a Harvard professor and the nation’s most eminent reading researcher. Her 1967 book, Learning to Read: The Great Debate, should have ended the reading wars
This afternoon, President-Elect Biden introduced his first Cabinet picks, all of whom are highly qualified and experienced. None is remotely controversial. Senator Marco Rubio tweeted that he would oppose them all. One reason he gave was that they had Ivy League educations. On Twitter, one of the many responses was a list of Trump Cabinet members who had gone to Harvard, Yale, and other Ivies. Tr
I recently had the pleasure of reading Kevin Welner’s terrific new Onion-like book, “Potential Grizzlies: Making the Nonsense Bearable.” In tweets, I described Kevin as the Stephen Colbert and Groucho Marx of American education. Kevin and I had fun discussing the book on a Zoom sponsored by the Network for Public Education. ( WATCH: Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Kevin Welner ). Kevin has ple
You may recall the iconic painting of little Ruby Bridges, a first-grader, who was the first African American student to enroll in a previously all-white segregated school in New Orleans. If you don’t, be sure to read this article, which tells what happened to the William Franz Public School. Three scholars–Connie L. Schaffer, Martha Graham Viator, and Meg White–tell the story. The three are also
I am a 1956 graduate of San Jacinto High School in Houston, Texas. The school no longer exists; it is now part of the campus of Houston Community College. When I attended San Jac, it was a thriving community of about 1500 students. Most of the teachers were old-timers. There were many clubs for after-school activities and many sports teams. We were known as the Golden Bears. As a senior, I was ed
Everyone seems to have an opinion about whether the mandated federal tests should be administered this spring. When the pandemic was first acknowledged last March, Betsy DeVos offered waivers to states that wanted
