When I think about accountability in education, I think about the times I stood in front of my students with a walkthrough clipboard looming outside the door. I remember rearranging my lesson plan not because it was best for my students, but because it would check the right boxes on someone else’s rubric. Federal accountability […]
Posted innews
“They’re Taking Children”: Columbia Heights Superintendent speaks out after ICE detains five-year-old student
According to Columbia Heights Public Schools, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy, Liam Ramos, on Tuesday as he returned home from school. Ramos, who is a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody in their driveway by ICE agents, according to Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik, at a press […]
Posted inESOL
Twice Overlooked: Bilingual Students with Receptive Language Deficits
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2010, 9.2% of all students were English Learners in US public Schools. By 2021, that number increased to 10.6 percent. Similarly, in the state of Illinois, in 2018, 12.1% of the students were English Learners, whereas that number went up to 16% of the students in […]
Posted inMathematics
Math is Beautiful
As my tutoring sessions with Jaylen happily show, how educators view the subject they teach can have a wonderful effect on how their students feel and think about that subject, even one as superficially unwelcoming as math! I’ve volunteered at an elementary/middle school as a tutor for the last eight years, although last school-year was […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Algorithm Can Wait: Why preschool might be our most radical institution
Walk into any preschool classroom today and you won’t find what dominates most conversations about the future of education: algorithms, dashboards, learning platforms, AI tutors, or adaptive assessments. Instead, you’ll find something far more radical. A child cracking open a walnut they found on the playground. Two friends negotiating whose turn it is with the […]
Posted inHigh School
Investing in Student Social Emotional Health: A High School’s SEL Story
High school can be a very stressful time in a student’s life. Academic stress, social anxieties, and the journey to discover who they are as individuals can result in a perfect storm that leaves students feeling overwhelmed and ill-equipped to navigate these challenges. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) can equip students with the tools to flourish […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Drowning in the Glow: How the Right A.I. Could Save the Teachers Keeping Schools Alive
We’re living through a technological revolution, but classrooms don’t feel futuristic. They feel tired. Over-lit. Understaffed. Stretched thin across expectations that multiply every year while support shrinks in the rearview. Teachers don’t need more think pieces about innovation.We need oxygen. Every fall, we greet students with hope and a stack of new logins. iReady. Zearn. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Hidden Toll of ICT: When Co-Teaching Isn’t Really Co-Teaching — And Students Pay the Price
By the third period on a Tuesday morning, I had already received six emails about IEP service logs, two messages from classroom teachers asking how to “modify something quickly” for an upcoming lesson, and a report about a student who had gone more than a week without receiving his mandated small-group support. Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) […]