As a special education teacher, one of my important responsibilities includes writing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for students. IEPs are educational documents that describe learning strengths/weaknesses, accommodations or modifications, special education goals and services, and other topics that relate to a student’s Free and
Read More
Accountability: The Crushing Weight of It All
Everywhere I turn today, “accountability” is suffocating the life out of schools, teachers, and administrators. Accountability looms large in high-stakes testing for students, teacher evaluations, and around this time of year: Teacher End-of-Year Checkout. If you aren’t a teacher, you
Read More
Collateral Damage: Preschool Joins the Wreckage
In the book Collateral Damage, Nichols & Berliner (2007) provide a solid argument that high-stakes testing corrupts schools, harms students, and reduces teacher instruction from dynamic, engaging content to noncomplex, basic skill drills that improve student test scores. I read
Read More
Fitting In
I teach preschool students with autism and severe communication delays. It’s likely that my students will face some challenges fitting in during their life. As their teacher and advocate, it can be hard for me to fit in, too. The
Read More
ESA Program: Who Does it Empower?
Well, anyone who reads my blogs probably knows my opinion about school-choice (I think it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing that is defunding public schools and segregating Arizona kids by race, ethnicity, and SES). There are three paths to school
Read MoreMentoring Matters!
Welcome 2015! If you have been thinking of ways to influence the profession in the New Year, you might consider mentoring early career teachers. I believe new teachers are key to our professional future. They have knowledge, passion for teaching,
Read MoreSchool choice: An attack on traditional public schools
Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! (recent election). Now that I have that out of my system, this is a blog post about school choice. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the only person who thinks that “school choice” is a bad idea. Public discourse is
Read MoreEducators: Are you talking about this election?
Dear educators, this is just a quick post to ask the question, “Are you talking about this upcoming election in the community?” If you aren’t, I believe that you should be. The state election of the Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Read More