In a school system, we must try to find the place where greatest common ground exists and maneuver form there to include everyone. And, as we write this, we wonder why legislators don't understand this better than anyone else. Read more...

There is a famous picture of a little girl crying because she can’t do a second-grade math problem, and neither can her mother. Probably millions of people have seen this picture. Certainly the experts in charge have seen this picture. They do not relent. They keep on pushing this idiotic pedagogy. The kids cry. The parents don’t know how to help them. It's all captured in this one picture.

In the…

Why I Love This Strategy to Introduce Concepts

BY CHERYL MIZERNY · PUBLISHED 01/15/2017

6 Things We Should Never Say to Our ELLs

BY VALENTINA GONZALEZ · PUBLISHED 11/05/2017

A meditation on why the schools are bad. Is it enough to discuss what the Education Establishment does with Its vast budgets?

 Maybe it's also necessary to contemplate what we put up with. The Education Establishment does not function in a vacuum. It's functioning in the middle of 300+ million people. Maybe if our standards were higher...Maybe if we put pressure on the professors to do a better job...Maybe if…

Assess, Teach, Learn, Repeat: Why Assessment Comes First

Imagine you have decided to learn a new skill: Perhaps Medieval cookery or competitive stone skipping. But, how do you begin? An internet search may explain strategies and give you examples of people who achieved prominence. You may…

Each year at this time of holidays our minds turn to family and traditions, to faith and to friends, food, and gifts. Newspapers are laden with ads and coupons. Our inboxes are also. Store parking lots are filled with cars, everyone is hurrying somewhere. Schools, too, prepare for the holidays. There is a frenzy about this time of year.

Since we began writing…

Sexual harassment doesn't begin in adulthood. It is grounded in the earliest messages we get about men and women and how to treat one another. Choices about roles and relationships develop while young men and women are in our schools. Schools can become a breeding ground for the development of young women who are unsure of their responses when boys or men behave inappropriately. Or, schools can reinforce respect. Are young boys permitted the "boys will be boys" excuse for talk and…

ARE YOU THE CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC

Disconnected leaders are captains on the Titanic. 

Comfortable disconnection in the present signals…

Disability is a label. We use it to classify children in schools. That classification system has been used to separate children and adults. Those who were learning, emotionally, or physically different were labeled and given special services. As we have become a more inclusive system, that classification system has helped us to obtain funds to offer the additional supports for children with learning differences, mental health issues, or physical challenges. By definition,…

Every day school leaders search for the light in the child's eyes, the one that turns on from the inside and radiates everywhere. It sets our hearts on fire. We hear the small voices express dreams and wishes all year long. They lift us up to do and be our very best. When we and you volunteered to lead, we responded to a calling within and received the gift of touching lives. It is a profound responsibility and it brings great joy. Let us as older ones encourage those who follow as…