A quality evaluation is a beginning; a useless one, an end. That’s the conclusion I draw from a quote by the legendary Madeline Hunter in a recent Ed Week article by David Finley: “If you hear someone playing the piano,
Read MorePaying It Forward
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
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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
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A Choice and a Voice
People do not care about public education! That was the message that many Arizonan educators received back in November as a wave of school overrides failed at the ballot. Shortly after, the budget for public education was drastically cut which
Read MoreWhere Did My Humor Go?
I was so proud of my very first Stories From School blog. It shed light on an interesting subject, related directly to education practice, and allowed readers a glimpse into a topic that was current and relevant. Most importantly, however,
Read MoreWho Cheated in Atlanta?
In 1963, Davey Moore, an American boxer, lost a fight due to a technical knock-out. He left the ring complaining of a headache and died of inoperable brain injuries 4 days later. He was 30 years old. That same year,
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Raise Your Voice!
“You’re a teacher!? And you were discovered online and asked to be here?! Wow, that’s the teacher dream! How did you get people to notice you and listen to what you have to say?” One young teacher who was volunteering
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We Need MORE Federal Oversight, Not Less
For the past couple of years, debates around the current state of education have narrowly focused on two main issues: Common Core and charter schools. Folks can argue until the cows come home over whether or not the Common Core Standards represent federal
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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
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What’s a Weekend For?
This weekend I drove with my kids to their cousin’s birthday party. Friday evening, my daughter’s Brownie troop had a swing dancing workshop, so we left Saturday morning, and drove the 4 ½ hours back today. We took the dog
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