“I was one of those kids with a grim future,” author J.D. Vance begins in his book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. “I almost failed out of high school. I nearly gave in to the deep anger and resentment harbored by everyone around me. Today people look at me, […]
School Improvement
Posted inCommon Core
Poverty, Parents, Homework and Kitchen Tables
Poverty is more than just an excuse Policymakers and mainstream education reformers have been chronically unwilling to acknowledge education research and evidence indicating the impact of poverty on school children and the need for social and economic reforms. Yet at the same time they demand attention to and respect for the test data they believe […]
Posted inParents
Being a Teacher (but first, just being “Dad”)
About four years ago my wife called me at school and told me that our oldest daughter had gotten off the school bus crying. Walking up our 100 feet of driveway between the road and our door, she had her report card in one hand and was clearly trying to gather herself before getting to […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Chicken Little: The World of Education
Do you remember the childhood story, Henny Penny? Or more commonly known as “Chicken Little?” As the story goes, Henny Penny meets up with several different animals and warns them the sky is falling after being hit on the head by an acorn. Oh! The terror! The fear! The worry…the SKY is falling?! Whatever will […]
Posted inSchool Improvement
TEDTalk: Help for Kids the Education System Forgets
One of the best TED Talks I’ve seen in a while was by Victor Rios, a sociology professor at the University of California. The segment, titled “Help for kids the education system ignores” was poignant, direct, and necessary. His speech highlighted how some of our neediest students are falling through the cracks, and what our mandate – as […]
Posted inFormative Assessments
Emergency Preparedness Distance Learning
I was sitting in my apartment in the Dominican Republic for the third “hurricane day” in a row. School was still closed and we faced a full week of closure. Working to establish a distance learning culture our school sent a broadcast to parents and teachers; an expectation for students to utilize the online platform […]
Posted inFrom the Front Lines
How “Big Ed” Could Ruin America
There’s been much-to-do with EpiPens in the news these past few weeks. As the company Mylan has raised the price of the life-saving, anti-allergen medicine from $100 to $600, there have been more than 1,700 articles claiming everything it costs $30 to manufacture to denouncing the teachers’ union for being complicit in the calamity. Seriously. This […]
Posted inBook Review
Book Review: Teach Like A Champion 2.0
The book Teach Like A Champion is one that many educators have read, or, at the very least, heard of. This especially rings true for our classroom leaders who teach in urban schools. The first edition launched in 2010 by Doug Lemov, a teacher and administrator for the Uncommon Schools initiative, this book chronicles Lemov’s attempts to […]