Earlier this Spring, the Philadelphia-based education think tank Research for Action held a Twitter chat around the hashtag #4percentchat, which was the number of non-white teachers that we have here in Pennsylvania. Yes, though 18% of the Commonwealth is non-white, teachers of color are much less rare. While this is a problem in Pennsylvania, its […]
Pennsylvania
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 […]
A Closer Look at School Choice: The Pennsylvania Story
This is the first in a series on school choice. I am beginning this series of articles with my home state of Pennsylvania where I taught for 30 years and where I have firsthand experience with school choice. The PA Charter School Act School choice came to Pennsylvania through the PA Charter School Act of […]
Use Your Holiday Break to Get Political
This summer at my first PSEA Summer Leadership Conference (our union getaway in Gettysburg, PA), I heard what was probably the most interesting speech in years. The president of Student PSEA, a college senior about to begin her student-teaching that fall, talked about politics and education. She said that, while in high school leading up […]