I’ve taught chemistry at Eastwood High for thirteen years. Long enough to tell when something doesn’t add up—even when it looks perfect on paper. It started last Tuesday, after I finished grading the midterms. Normally, I’d be overjoyed when students scored high, but this time, something was off—way off. Three of my juniors: Dustin, Eliana […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Standardized testing killed my career.
Standardized testing killed my career. We live in a country where teachers are not respected on the whole. They are tasked with teaching a group of diverse learners with so many different backgrounds, learning styles, and degrees of readiness -whether developmental or amount of exposure. There are special needs students and students who are not […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
5 Reasons Subbing Might Be Right for You
I never planned on becoming a recovering subbing educator. It just happened. It was the end of my final year as a full-time teacher. One week earlier, I had led what I thought was a killer lesson about The Outsiders. I made all the right teacher moves. My students activated multiple kinds of learning. There […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Idaho teacher resigns over inclusive classroom sign
Sarah Inama, a sixth-grade history teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, Idaho, has submitted her resignation following a dispute with the West Ada School District over inclusive signage in her classroom. Inama, a veteran educator, chose to step down rather than comply with a district directive to remove a poster that read […]
Posted inEnglish Language Learners
The Transformative Power of Literature Circles
Walk into any given classroom and survey the students about reading. Some students will say that they love it, others may say they read because they have to, and another group would put it last on their list of things they enjoy about school. Perhaps they just haven’t found a book genre they love, or […]
Posted inCharter Schools
Feds want to expand on unsafe schools; offers more guidance to states
In a letter from the feds, the U.S. Department of Education has released a new letter urging states to identify more schools on the Unsafe Schools list and offer more choices for them to move to charter public schools. This move would strengthen the implementation of the Unsafe School Choice Option under Section 8532 of […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Trump Administration threatens Harvard University with loss of federal grants
In a dramatic escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and Harvard University, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a blistering letter to Harvard President Dr. Alan Garber on May 5, 2025, declaring the university would no longer be eligible for federal grants. She cited what she called a “systemic pattern of violating federal […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Moms For Liberty: The rise of the anti-education movement
The gathering strength of the anti-public education movement only becomes more and more impossible to deny. As education groans beneath a lack of funding, the onslaught of charter schools, and the dismantling of the Department of Education, educators across the nation wearily ask themselves one question: “What’s next?” As more and more of us have […]