Fuzzy scoring on Regents doesn't help students

Published: June 20, 2013 4:34 PM Newsday

By DANIEL BRENNER

Photo credit: iStock | Let's raise our expectations for what our students can learn, and hold them and their teachers 

High school students across the state have just finished taking Regents exams, a time-honored tradition in New York that I…

Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

June 20, 2013

I had the pleasure of working with Michael Keany, co-founder of School Leadership 2.0, on an article for the June 2013 issue of Parenting: School Years.  In the piece, Mr. Keany offers great tips for parents on ways they can help their children meet the rigor of the Common Core Standards.  If you haven't read the piece, you…

June 2013 Volume X Issue VI

Just for the ASKing! is a monthly e-newsletter that addresses the needs of all those who strive to be instructional leaders. This month’s issue is the third in a periodic series focused on the role and use of technology as a teaching and learning tool. It focuses on building our own digital literacy so that we can provide our students learning experiences that are aligned with…

I attended an event last week at Smithtown West High School in Smithtown, Long Island. It was the 17^th year, that’s right, the 17^th year for the Smithtown School of Business Annual Business Olympics. Over 200 high school students from both Smithtown High School East and Smithtown High School West participated in teams. The students presented their concept for a new business in the field of “Apps”. If you don’t know what an App is, it’s something…

On Teaching (Elliot Eisner)

If I Were a Black Kid ...

What Makes Boys Form Good “Working Alliances” with Teachers?

In this intriguing Kappan article, Michael Reichert (Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives) and Richard Hawley (headmaster emeritus of University School in Cleveland) describe their study of thousands of secondary-school teachers and male students in six countries. Their conclusion: relationships are the key to adolescent boys’ success in school: “[R]elationship does not…

Though widely viewed as a critic of teachers and their unions, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has begun reaching out to both in new ways, writes Linda Shaw in The Seattle Times. It is putting less emphasis on test-score metrics, and it strongly supports the notion that a fair evaluation of teachers requires multiple measures. About five years ago, Gates thought the best way to improve teachers was to "get rid of 10-20-30 percent of…