Blogboard

What's in a Name?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:25:11 -0500

With the Education Department reportedly planning to change the name of the No Child Left Behind Act, Nancy Flanagan says she's still working on a recommendation, but is pretty sure it will include the word "investment." Nations whose systemic education...

Firings Happen

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:10:39 -0500

D.C. teacher Mr. Potter reports that several teachers at his school recently received termination notices (as part of an apparent year-end district purge). While he says he questions some of the decisions, he suggests that teachers in general are too...

Fatigue

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:41:10 -0500

Feeling beat? Happychyk discourses on the phenomenon of early-summer teacher collapse. Last night I had a conversation with my principal, and come to find out she's been napping every afternoon, too. She's a little surprised by her need for sleep,...

Summer Activities

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:09:45 -0500

Mister Teacher provides a list of 12 Things Teachers Should Do Over Summer Break. Number 7 sounds like good advice: Find a trivia night at a local restaraunt or bar. Try to win....

Iran and the New News

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:57:29 -0500

Will Richardson observes that the coverage of the election protests in Iran—coming to us via twitter, raw video, and personal blogs—illustrates that we are in a whole new ball game when it comes to media literacy. In his formulation, we...

At Least They Were Honest!

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:21:57 -0500

“My dog ate it” just doesn’t seem to cut it these days. Mr. Potter of Harry Potter and the Urban School Nightmare had a student offer the following excuse to get out of a recent test: Mr. Potter: *Student*, you...

How Do You Define Academic Success?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:41:16 -0500

Pondiscio at Core Knowledge provides a cautionary reminder that it's entirely possible for a kid to ace standardized tests and still not know all that much: What the data doesn’t show ... is that out in the real world there...

School's Out Blues

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:37:07 -0500

Hobo Teacher can't find it in himself to end on a positive note this year. He's got some harsh words: Does anyone care an abundant amount of criminals, bigots, and just general all around jack-a-ninnies graduated high schools around this...

Alternate Realities

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:54:40 -0500

A fascinating and troubling post: Middle school teacher Bill Ferriter is noticing some signs that kids are increasingly confusing video games with reality: I'm just starting to wonder whether one of the unintended consequences of easy access to electronic experience...

How Would You Spend the Education Stimulus Funds?

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:12:50 -0500

Ariel Sacks, guest blogging at Public School Insights, says she would invest in efforts to keep effective teachers from leaving the classroom. For her, that means creating and compensating teacher-leadership roles—something that is shamefully lacking at present: I serve as...

Whither Libraries?

Thu, 28 May 2009 11:26:23 -0500

Doug Johnson says "library people" need to be able to answer the question of why schools even need libraries in the age of the Internet. And he gets a ton of responses. Hat tip: Teacher Ninja....

Secret, Underground Library

Tue, 26 May 2009 16:16:46 -0500

Group blog boingboing recently featured a story about a decidedly atypical high-school rebel. A teenager in a private school is using the unoccupied locker next to her own to run a lending library of banned books. The list includes: The...

Spanish as a Second Language─for Teachers

Fri, 22 May 2009 12:06:01 -0500

More than 50 percent of the students speak Spanish in the district where The Daily Grind’s Mr. McNamar teaches. In light of that, he thinks it would make perfect sense for the district to provide Spanish-language classes to all teachers...

Losing Focus

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:50:36 -0500

Mrs. Bluebird and her colleagues have discovered that, with the school year winding down, a number of students with ADHD have gone off their meds. There's a logical explanation, it seems: We are suspecting that many of our parents will...

Questioning "No Excuses"

Mon, 18 May 2009 12:27:03 -0500

Could "No Excuses" schools—schools for low-income children that "create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values,"—be the solution to the achievement gap, as New York Times columnist David Brooks recently suggested? Teachers Nancy Flanagan and Doug Noon...