“The day after the premiere I was walking onto campus and stopped. I stopped and took in the image of Mitchell School. I paused, because in that moment I realized that our little school, Mitchell, was doing something extraordinary- becoming
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Teacher Evaluations: Double Standard?
Recently I started a class on instructional supervision. The reading and content have been very interesting. The topics in class have lent themselves to examining teacher evaluations in a more thorough manner. Lately there has been a lot of talk
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Pollen Counts and The Mitchell 20
My original plan was to continue the fiery debate from my last post, but a strange thing happened last week. I shed a tear while watching a movie. No, I wasn’t crying. I’m a guy and you’ve already read about
Read MoreProtecting the Teacher AllSpark
I read Bill Ferriter’s blog this week about the story of Mitchell 20, a movie about 20 Phoenix elementary teachers who chose to pursue National Board certification as a way to take control of the one thing they could control:
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Making Waves
It’s that time again – football season. Last year I referenced Randall McDaniel’s Hall of Fame speech from 2009 in a blog titled Are You A Difference Maker? A few weeks ago I came across a Dov Seidman book, How
Read MoreRiddle Me This Part 2
Who exactly is running public schools? Fellow AZ blogger extraordinaire, Mike Lee, recently wrote a blog entitled Riddle Me This in which he asks "Is there another industry where decision-making is dominated by so many without any experience or advanced
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Future Shock!
It’s not easy being a parent and now there’s one more reason why. Much like automobile shoppers in the emerging car market of the 1950’s who wandered wide-eyed into attractive dealerships, parents have become consumers, but instead of for cars, they are shopping for the shiniest of schools.
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Sink or Swim?
Each year, I host teaching interns or student teachers (or both) as they move through teacher-preparation programs through local universities. During this process I am able to “pay things forward” by coaching other inspired people to be the best teachers
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