Every year the PDK (Phi Delta Kappa—a professional organization for educators) polls Americans to capture their current views about public education. The most recent poll is the 49th. Check out these results: Only 42% of the respondents feel performance on standardized tests is a highly important indicator of school quality. A whopping 82% of the…
As you might guess, I am not employed solely to write a blog. That means that I don’t necessarily have all the time in the world to follow each development, large and small, in the great big world of education. Still, I try to keep my eye on things, write about what I know, and…
In recent weeks, I have read personal opinion pieces from two major news sources that raised eyebrows. Specifically, my eyebrows. While one writer expressed her opinion that we need to bring home economics back as a key component of the school curriculum, the other writer suggested we simply stop teaching writing. That strange feeling in…
It is summer. You can see it in children’s smiling faces. You can see it in the numbers registering on thermometers. And in Atlanta, Georgia, it just got a lot hotter for Atlanta Public Schools’ outgoing superintendents, staff, many of the district’s principals and teachers, and even the state’s governor. Burned the worst are the…