Monthly Archives: June 2012
While I’ve acknowledged mixed feelings about the common core math and language arts standards themselves, I think the process for adopting these standards stank. Neither teachers nor parents had much time to review these major changes to education policy before … Continue reading
Most of the best math teachers I know fear and loathe calculators, especially when students are allowed to use them in the early grades. Not only do calculators permit students to bypass the painful but – in their view – … Continue reading
I won’t be posting for the next several days, as my husband and I are heading off on a rafting/camping trip in Alaska. Don’t we all love summer!
I’ve written before about parent “trigger” laws that give parents the power to close failing schools. On Saturday the U.S. Conference of Mayors voted unanimously to endorse trigger laws. Here’s a report from Reuters, as printed in the Chicago Tribune: … Continue reading
Blog readers know that I hold lots of opinions about proposed education reforms. Yet today I’m blogging about a question that leaves me genuinely torn. Should language arts instruction – more specifically reading instruction – focus more heavily on informational, … Continue reading
Since my posting on Florida’s reaction to a sudden drop in writing test scores got a lot of “hits”, in blog terminology, I wanted to share a recent article on the same topic from the New York Times. The story … Continue reading
My three summer online courses open today, so sure enough, I had THE DREAM last night. I’ve talked to other teachers about this, and many report that they too experience this particular nightmare every year, a day or so before … Continue reading
I debated whether or not to post about Scott Walker’s victory in Wisconsin’s recall election, and what it might mean for education. While I’m not in general a huge fan of teachers’ unions, I also dislike blaming the unions for … Continue reading
Since there was a lot of interest in my posting on Florida’s reaction to the dramatic drop in writing test scores after the tests were revised to include grammar and punctuation standards, I wanted to share an Education Week article … Continue reading
I’ve long read the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal for its top-flight investigative reporting. The most recent issue includes an intriguing article, provocatively entitled “Better Schools, Fewer Dollars”, by University of Colorado education professor Marcus Winters. Since Utah isn’t going to … Continue reading