If you are like me you get very invested in your students in special education. So invested that it is difficult to release them to the next special education teacher. I teach kindergarten through third grade mild/moderate special education in a resource room, so some of my kids loop up with me the next year […]
Featured
Posted inFeatured
[Season 1: Episode 3] Financial Aid 101- Accessing
Season 1: The Regular Drip: Episode 3- Financial Aid 101- Access Speaking with Mastery Charter School College Counselor, author, and speaker Dana Martin, Mike looks at considerations that families must make in their Junior and Senior years of high school. Part 1 of 2 episodes that focus on financial aid, this conversation explores the necessities of what […]
Posted inHow to Fix Education
The Dangers of For-Profit Education
Betsy DeVos, the current education secretary, has made headlines again regarding investigations of fraudulent for-profit colleges. On May 13 2018, The New York Times reported that investigations on several for-profit colleges had “ground to a halt”. Many of the team members appointed by DeVos were former employees at those entities being investigated, most notably, Julian […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher, Current Events in Education, English Language Learners, ESOL, Featured, Opinion, Teacher Leaders
Mandy Manning Is The National Teacher of the Year We Need – And Deserve
Most Americans only know Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, by their own knee-jerk reaction to the State Teachers of the Year Award Ceremony at the White House and, of course, the political fallout that occurred thereafter. She’s a darling to those on the left, adorning her formal, floral black dress with […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
10 Things My Newborn Younger Son Taught Me About Education
Isaiah, my second son, joined the world at 5:25a on May 4, 2018. In between the midst of nurse and specialist checkups, I had a second to look out the window overlooking a beautiful river-laden landscape, and I remember the article I wrote after my first son joined our family. And how I continue to […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Teaching the Kids We Have Right Now: LGBT+ Youth in the Classroom
In a recent NPR piece interviewing author Alex Wagner, she stated: “I think we do a lot of work in this day and age focusing on the future and on the past….we don’t invest enough in the present.”[i] Wagner was talking about her exploration of her genetic backstory, but the fact is, we focus on […]
Posted inHow to Fix Education
Teachers In Action: From the Classroom to the Convention
It was a busy week. My student government kids teleconferenced with the Broward Education Foundation to award them $1,000 they had collected through the spare change in the cafeteria. The SCA students wanted to help the victims of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. The organization receiving the gift looks after the social, economic, and academic […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
Test Scores > Hungry Kids? PA Teacher Fired for Making Pancakes
Welcome to 2018, where schools are permitted to hold pep rallies for students to “get them excited” about standardized tests (like that ever worked!?), but if a teacher makes his students – 95% of whom are free and reduced lunch – pancakes during the tests, that leads to him being fired. Seriously. This isn’t an […]