Tag: education

The New School Year: History Will Guide the Future

New school years always bring new challenges for children, parents and teachers. This school year, though, promises to be much trickier, because we are now debating United States History. Remember history? That’s the class that isn’t tested at the end of the year by the great national testing monopoly, Pearson. The PARCC tests focus on… Continue reading The New School Year: History Will Guide the Future

America’s Educators Lead the Way

If you care deeply about social and racial justice, value equal opportunity, detest discrimination and believe that this country needs to focus on its core values of tolerance, compromise, equality and democracy, then fear not. America’s educators have got your back. I returned from the National Education Association (NEA) convention in Boston last week feeling… Continue reading America’s Educators Lead the Way

Back To School: A Different Kind of Division

The great divide in American public attitudes is most evident during Presidential election years, and this year is no different. Republicans and Democrats seem to be living in two different countries when it comes to their views on how much the government should be involved in people’s lives, the role of religion, support for social… Continue reading Back To School: A Different Kind of Division

Chris Christie: Terrible as Governor But Qualified for VP

I sort of forgot that Chris Christie was still the Governor of New Jersey and an active politician until this week, so quiet was he on policy and bombast. But now he’s back. His first foray was to emerge with a set of checks made out to suburban school district students for $6,599 each.  This… Continue reading Chris Christie: Terrible as Governor But Qualified for VP

Teacher Caught on Camera Beating Black Student – Gets Arrested – Video

Cameras are all over the place. These criminals need to keep that when they decide to commit these crimes. To Texas we go! According to KHOU, Mary Hastings,63, a teacher at Ozen High School near Beaumont was arrested for assault. In the video — shot by another student, — Hastings can be seen repeatedly hitting… Continue reading Teacher Caught on Camera Beating Black Student – Gets Arrested – Video

Georgia Teacher Resigns for Calling Student “the dumbest girl I have ever met” 

A Georgia teacher who called a high school student “the dumbest girl I have ever met” resigned on Monday night, the NY Daily News reports. Cory Hunter apologized for any “disruption” he caused and announced at a school board meeting in Greesboro that he was stepping down. “He will not be returning to the classroom,” Greene County… Continue reading Georgia Teacher Resigns for Calling Student “the dumbest girl I have ever met” 

Public Workers: Working Hard, Paying More, Getting Less, Being Blamed. Solution?

Governor Christie wasn’t back in New Jersey for two days before his administration and its apologists went back on the attack on public worker pensions and health benefits. The man who promised that he wouldn’t touch pensions in his gubernatorial run in 2009, and who staked his presidential ambitions on a bipartisan pension and benefits… Continue reading Public Workers: Working Hard, Paying More, Getting Less, Being Blamed. Solution?

The Swift Fall of Testing – What Comes Next?

I’ve been in the education business for 31 years and I’ve seen many a fad come and go, from Teacher-proof curricula to shared decision-making to Differentiation to Cooperative Learning, Curriculum Mapping, Goals 2000 and various reading programs that focus on inventive spelling, phonics, whole language and learning vocabulary in context. Many of my colleagues didn’t… Continue reading The Swift Fall of Testing – What Comes Next?

Education’s Dirty Little Secret

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 the following: The network serves mostly black and Hispanic students and is known for exacting… Continue reading Education’s Dirty Little Secret

Great Teachers Make Great Schools

happy teacher and students standing in classroom holding books

Another school year. It’s my 32nd as a teacher and I can still say that I love what I’m doing and believe that I am contributing to the betterment of society. I just wish that at some point before I go to the Great Faculty Room in the Sky, you know, the one where the… Continue reading Great Teachers Make Great Schools