WHY YOU SHOULD THINK TWICE ABOUT PUTTING A TV IN YOUR KID’S BEDROOM

Posted on March 6, 2013 by …

I write about education six days a week. My main motivation is that I’m sure the public schools can be much better at less cost.

Another big motivation is that I’m continually disappointed by the powers that be -- big media, the business community, the military. All of them complain about education but none of them actually gets involved. They don’t push the Education Establishment to do a better job. Our movers and shakers, alas, do not move and shake all that…

Companies are spending billions of dollars on TV, print, and digital advertising to swing us towards their products and services. From watching the Superbowl to checking Facebook on mobile phones, we’re flooded with images and slogans of how we should live, how we should look, and how we should act.

Consider this: We are one of the only countries that allow…

Guest Post By John Thompson: The Texas Standardized Test Revolt

Children and the Environment, and How Our School System Can Help

by Hayley Scott

As report after report comes out about the inevitable demise of Earth’s finite resources, people around the world plead internally for change. Schools teach it, newscasts explain it and scientists research it. However, as positive as any awareness is, true change needs to be practiced for any actionable evolution to take place. One location that…

March 4, 2013

Today is March 4th, a special day in our family, and the only day of the year which is also an action.  And what an action it is!  I love the implied optimism of the date, "March Forth!"  March forth into the great unknown.  March forth in the direction of your dreams, and if you've had a recent set-back or failure, by all means…

The Future Of Education Eliminates The Classroom, Because The World Is Your Class

WRITTEN BY: Marina Gorbis

Its not as easy as you think.  Consider our blog post at EdWeek.  Interested in what you think.

A Happy Tale From a Common-Core Classroom

My classroom once hid a tale of two cities, largely driven by state testing. When I started teaching 16 years ago, the curriculum that I selected for my honors and intermediate students…

Inspiring Others

Your climate, your culture

By David Jakes on February 28th, 2013…

When teachers choose pension plans

By Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Amber M. Winkler / February 21, 2013

That the arcane issue of teacher pensions has turned into an emotional battleground can be evinced by recent headlines:

“Cuomo Pension Plan Sparks Fight With New York Unions” (March 14, 2012, Huffington Post)

“Don’t demonize teachers because of pension system’s faults” (October 21, 2012, Los Angeles Times)

“Pension…

The Learning Virtues

By …

15 Ideas for Motivating Your Child to Do Well in School

I like to say good morning to our students.  No, actually I love saying good morning to our students.   When I say this I mean to several hundred students as they arrive, and not a few as I may see them passing in the hall.  It’s a simple act that has a powerful set of returns.  In fact, today I took this simple act a step further and held the door open to those high school students who are dropped off, or who drive to school.  They slowly trickled in at one of the entrances to our secondary…

Just how many ineffective teachers are out there?

by Professor Aaron Pallas

How many New York City public schoolteachers are so incompetent that they should be fired? That’s the 250-million-dollar question that must be addressed by both sides wrangling over what kind of teacher-evaluation system the city is going to build.

New York…

February 11, 2013