The week began with the president saying that there was too much emphasis on testing in schools. In the middle of the week, the New York Times published a story about Success Academy Charter Schools that, among other things, noted…
Category: teachers
I get very tired very quickly when I hear that we need the best and brightest to become classroom teachers in the United States. For one, it’s incredibly insulting because it assumes that the teachers we have now in public…
Another week, and more snow is expected in the northeast. There’s more over the PARCC testing storm as well, but this time, there is a ray of sane sunshine. Here in New Jersey, State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman…
Yes, I know it’s the holiday break and students and teachers across the country are off, but really, this is just the calm before the storm. There are only two more months until the new PARCC tests are administered. Then…
Thirty years ago today, I walked into York Preparatory School on New York’s Upper East Side for my first day as a high school history teacher. I had no formal training as a teacher except for my degree in History…
Aside from the December holiday season, the back-to-school late August and early September rush has the most profound effects on the United States. Shopping patterns change, traffic gets worse, and the general tenor of every community shifts to accommodate the…
At some point, I could see teachers having to not only swear allegiance to the United States and the state in which they live, but taking an oath to uphold the testing mania that is now in full swing across…
Giving of course my humble opinion, I believe we are at the high water mark of the anti-union, pro-market-force, evaluation-by-testing mania that’s gripped education. Or I could be seriously deluded and education is going through a profound change that will…
If you haven’t seen the picture, here it is: This is Governor Christie scolding a teacher on Saturday for questioning his education policies. A full accounting of the event can be found on Jersey Jazzman’s site. But as always with…
Imagine what would happen if the so-called education reformers knew what they were talking about. Could actually articulate a meaningful program that would improve teaching and learning. Didn’t have an agenda that blamed unions and teachers, and relied on privatizing…
While most of the rest of New Jersey was shopping and celebrating, I immersed myself in an article that shined some light on New Jersey’s new teacher tenure and evaluation law. The lesson? Principals, supervisors and other district evaluators are…
It’s not enough that the Christie Administration has bashed teachers as union mules and the source of New Jersey’s fiscal ills. It’s not enough that the governor has promoted private partnerships with public schools to avoid paying the state’s fair…