Happy Birthday, Hairmica!
Fri, 3/07/09 – 12:56 | No Comment

Much to my surprise, Big Guy was a Fourth of July-type person from the start.
His first celebration came at a local college when he was just shy of his first birthday but already walking. Walking …

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Articles tagged with: education reform

Develop a national test before deciding what to teach is backward
Monday, 22 Jun, 2009 – 20:01 | 2 Comments
Develop a national test before deciding what to teach is backward

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s plan to start developing a national test before anyone’s even come up with national standards is far worse that putting the cart before the horse.
It’s more like hitching up Secretariat …

Charter schools not an automatic cure, research shows
Tuesday, 16 Jun, 2009 – 20:00 | No Comment
Charter schools not an automatic cure, research shows

Here’s one that should shock U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan out of his school-boy crush on charter schools or, at the least, make him pause before he forces the nation to go steady with the …

A SWAT for waiting a decade on digital textbooks
Friday, 12 Jun, 2009 – 6:20 | No Comment
A SWAT for waiting a decade on digital textbooks

It seems there are two development paces for digital textbooks in California:
There’s doomed-to-fail-fast for public schools that wants to kick off by this fall, and there’s pokey procrastination for colleges that wants to wait until …

Time for another trip on the year-round merry-go-round
Sunday, 7 Jun, 2009 – 23:00 | 2 Comments
Time for another trip on the year-round merry-go-round

It sounds like a sweet set-up in Alexandria, Va.
Magic potions in a Harry Potter class. Math You Can Eat that uses brownies to teach fractions. Calligraphy, karate and film-making.
It’s all because of the district’s experiment …

Digital text books a great idea, but by this fall?
Tuesday, 2 Jun, 2009 – 20:30 | 4 Comments
Digital text books a great idea, but by this fall?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s push to put free digital textbooks in Californias high schools by this fall is so enticing on so many levels, the biggest of which is in the fewer number of trees that …

Another charter school “success” story
Sunday, 31 May, 2009 – 20:49 | No Comment
Another charter school “success” story

American Indian Public charter school in Oakland has a history of students with high poverty rates who achieve some of the highest standardized test scores in the California.
It also has a history that includes shaving  …

Pay teachers like the rest of are? We already do
Wednesday, 20 May, 2009 – 0:48 | No Comment
Pay teachers like the rest of are? We already do

Think we could solve all our problems in education by going to a merit-pay system that would make teachers earn their checks just like the rest of us?
Turns out that teachers already do earn their …

The case against rigid standards
Thursday, 14 May, 2009 – 21:38 | No Comment

Standards are good - they’re a framework for building a solid education.
Problem is, though, they’re only a framework, just as the human skeleton is the framework for the body. And just like the human body, the …

Intel chairman’s right about one thing: We need to talk about education
Wednesday, 13 May, 2009 – 0:37 | No Comment
Intel chairman’s right about one thing: We need to talk about education

Give Intel Chairman Craig Barrett credit for two things: He’s no Johnny Come Lately to the issue of education reform, and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is sometimes.
Make that three things: …

Where’s the payoff for longer school days?
Thursday, 9 Apr, 2009 – 0:58 | No Comment
Where’s the payoff for longer school days?

First off, let’s get over the notion that American students are at a disadvantage because the school days are longer in China and India.
The lofty goal of the Chinese education system is nine years of …

Many good reasons why ‘no excuses’ charter schools are not a solution
Wednesday, 25 Mar, 2009 – 1:24 | 5 Comments
Many good reasons why ‘no excuses’ charter schools are not a solution

Here’s a sucker bet:
Within the next year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will go to Boston to trumpet its charter schools as one of his “islands of excellence” where children can blossom and principals can take …

An education plan that finally drills down to basics
Tuesday, 10 Mar, 2009 – 23:05 | 3 Comments
An education plan that finally drills down to basics

It’s too bad that most of the buzz about President Barack Obama’s education policy speech today before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has to do with charter schools and merit pay.
Both are tired subjects that …

Welcome to the era of the national standardized test - for real this time
Wednesday, 18 Feb, 2009 – 3:28 | No Comment
Welcome to the era of the national standardized test - for real this time

Did Education Secretary Arne Duncan just accomplish in mere weeks what the past two presidents couldn’t pull off in 16 years?
Look deep into a Tuesday New York Times article, far below all the “gee, isn’t …

NCLB, seven years and still bullying strong
Thursday, 8 Jan, 2009 – 0:48 | 2 Comments
NCLB, seven years and still bullying strong

Happy Birthday, No Child Left Behind.
You were born seven years ago today as the federal government’s first major foray into education reform. Through testing and bludgeoning, you were supposed to be the solution to the …

A wish for the new education secretary
Wednesday, 17 Dec, 2008 – 1:10 | One Comment
A wish for the new education secretary

If the chief knock against Arne Duncan is that the education secretary-designate is not an educator, there’s little cause for worry.
The last time the party changed in the White House the education secretary’s resume included …

Mt. Homework will only get steeper — oh, great!
Tuesday, 2 Dec, 2008 – 13:51 | 2 Comments
Mt. Homework will only get steeper — oh, great!

As of this moment, I will cease and desist griping about the amount of homework Big Guy is assigned.
OK, except for the occasional gripe about its busy-work nature. And I’ll sometimes whine that its focus …

Why our kids struggle in math: It all adds up
Tuesday, 25 Nov, 2008 – 15:07 | No Comment
Why our kids struggle in math: It all adds up

Am I smarter than a fifth-grader? Jury’s still out on that, but I did flunk sixth-grade math last night.
Big Guy’s cousins came over after school, and everyone decided to do their homework immediately instead of …

A $1b a year failure, courtesy of NCLB
Thursday, 20 Nov, 2008 – 14:11 | 2 Comments
A $1b a year failure, courtesy of NCLB

I’ve done a fantastic job showing Big Guy how to tie his shoes. He knows everything he needs to know to tie his shoes. But he still can’t tie his stinking shoes.
And there are accusations …

Tenure — it’s not a dirty word
Thursday, 13 Nov, 2008 – 13:03 | No Comment
Tenure — it’s not a dirty word

Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life but looking back over more than four dozen teachers I had when I was in public school, there were only three that I’d consider incompetent. And only one …

Just what we need — another standardized test
Thursday, 23 Oct, 2008 – 11:28 | No Comment
Just what we need — another standardized test

I love Gaston Caperton. I really do.
When he said he was going to be an education governor, he meant it. He’s had a life-long commitment to improving schools, not only in the rich districts — …

The demerits of teacher merit pay
Thursday, 9 Oct, 2008 – 11:14 | No Comment
The demerits of teacher merit pay

In theory, merit pay for teachers has a lot going for it.
Reward the best. Truly inspiring classroom leaders such as Big Guy’s kindergarten teacher, who alternately inspires him with caterpillars and saves his life. Or …

Evaluate teachers more on caterpillars, less on tests
Friday, 3 Oct, 2008 – 10:35 | No Comment
Evaluate teachers more on caterpillars, less on tests

I suspect “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” isn’t included on the New York City Department of Education’s standardized tests.

In which case I’m very glad Big Guy’s kindergarten teacher doesn’t live in New York, which decided this week to make students’ standardized test scores a factor in “measuring teacher performance.”

Too bad for the Big Apple. The road to educational hell is paved with bubble tests, and this is another giant leap down the wrong path.

And too bad for kids like Big Guy, whose earliest exposure to education is built too much around memorization in preparation for the bubble tests they’ll learn to obsess about by the time they’re in second grade.

Professor Tree v Florida’s Pre K
Sunday, 1 Jun, 2008 – 19:56 | No Comment

Welcome to Professor Tree’s Lemonade 101.

In April, Professor Tree was loaded with fragrant blooms. At least, most of him was. The top was a threadbare, the victim of the winter’s frost.

Big Guy and Little Guy, of course, wanted to rip off the blossoms. And since the tree desperately needs pruned – it’s a metaphor for my life – many blooms were within easy reach.

“Let’s not do that, guys. We need to leave the flowers, so they’ll grow into lemons,” I said.

Big Guy looked at me as if I’d sprouted another head. “No way,” he said. Tonight everything clicked.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy ! I see the little lemons! I see the little lemons! Can we make lemonade?”

I explained the rest of the process: they’d have to water Professor Tree so the little green lemons would get big and yellow, and then we could make lemonade.

Welcome to the state of Florida’s pre-k program, where 5-year-olds are given one-minute drills in an effort to gauge the program’s success.