If we do go down this path, there has to be an increase in up-front compensation for teachers. Who is going to invest $30,000 or more into the rising cost of a university education to go after a job that will leave them in debt and incapable of raising a family on its income? We’ll get what we pay for: a lack of talent and major shortages of quality instruction.
Read More“Oh, the Humanity!”
Now that I've moved into the last grading period of the school year, the magnitude of the year has started to sink in. In August, I felt scared – the national trends in education seemed daunting and overwhelming (to say the
Read MoreValue Added
Ciril earned a B on his sonnet recital. I’m not sure how a value-added model can possibly calculate all that he has accomplished. But he knows, and we know, that the most important value that is ever added through the hard work of teachers and students will never be accurately depicted on a graph.
Read MoreYou’ve Been Served
I've been serving my teachers quite a bit, lately. For the past few weeks I've had to publish several versions of potential and varied staffing assignments and share a whole host of ominous news about the looming funding crisis for
Read MoreA New Metric System: Part II
In my last blogpost, "A New Metric System", I took issue with a couple of key points that Diane Ravitch regularly makes in her book and while on tour. This was after I gave Dr. Ravitch major kudos for igniting
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Connecting Policy to Practice, But What’s Connected to the Policy?
I had the good fortune to be one of over 2,000 faces in the room at the Phoenix Convention Center this week for the Professional Learning Communities Summit. How was it? Invigorating. Energizing. Engaging. Affirming. But, also frustrating. Disappointing.
Read MoreA New Metric System
Ravitch believes that as long as charters are working strictly with at-risk kids who are on the verge of dropping out of school, that is just fine. But as soon as charters start to attract the “regular” kids, they become the enemies of the public education system.
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Road to Nowhere
I have been thinking about what this post would look like for some time, now. Last spring I was on my way to a conference and I happened to tune into an interview with Diane Ravitch. At the time she
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The Damning of Intellectualism
Can we continue to hear the voices of our Founding Fathers, or will they forever be drowned out by the clang and clamor of the Damnation of Intellectualism?
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The Heart of Teaching
February brings many flutters and shudders for teachers. The flutters are connected to the chocolate, Sweetheart candy, and wonderfully-sappy cards that tell us how we’re the best teachers ever. The shudders come from a month full of test-prep and the emergence of
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