When educational reform is in the air, some organizations make strong, positive adjustments and others spin their wheels in the bog of indecision. Teach For America has read the wind and is making the right adjustments so that TFA teachers … Continue reading
Teaching For Measured Improvement in Student Learning
Common Core Is Not THE Reform; Core is the Engine FOR Reform
When something changes the world, do we recognize what is happening at the time? When did you buy your first cell phone? If your purchase was ten or more years ago, on that day did you imagine a future when … Continue reading
New School Report Cards: A school is as good as its least effective teacher
Superintendents and school boards, regarding how well children are achieving in your schools today, you are as fully clothed as the undressed emperor who walked down the village street in his skivvies believing that he was regally garbed. (Read The … Continue reading
Great Teachers Are Game Changers
Greatness is in demand these days. World Series contenders are looking for great pitching. Starters. Short relievers. Mid-relievers. Closers. You don’t have to throw more than a couple of innings, maybe 20 pitches at most, but if you have “great … Continue reading
Who Is Their Socrates?
September is a great month to tour the United States. The crowds of summer are thinned after most children are back in school and their parents have returned to work. Just fellow geezers and international tourists and occasional newly-weds. Most … Continue reading
Only in School Is a Year Less Than 150 Days
We use imprecise language when talking about the time between the first and last days of the annual school calendar. I hesitate to use the words “school year” because a school year is not a year. It is not even … Continue reading
Does Who Sits Where Affect the Academic Achievement of Children in Your Class?
You bet it does. Separate your thinking about past practices from your thinking about the future. The dividing line between the two is educational accountability. In the past, educational achievement was the record of how well individual children learned. Some … Continue reading
If I Did One Thing Differently
Big changes take time. They are achieved by blending many small changes through consistent and conscious effort overcoming innumerable obstacles arguing for the status quo until an aggregate of change is accomplished. Big changes are hard to accomplish because personal … Continue reading
Ready! Aim! Fire at Which Target?
This writing will start on the firing line at a local gun club and finish on the teaching line in every Wisconsin classroom. I have watched my friend Buzz when he shoots trap and skeet at the local gun club. … Continue reading
An Expert Pedagogue
Finding really strong teachers is not easy. Principals and superintendents must look closely at every teacher and teacher candidate to find expert pedagogues. If a teacher was an onion you would find that, as in a bushel of onions, teachers … Continue reading