Concussions and the Classroom

Reynaldo Leal for The Texas TribuneHigh school football players practice in Brownsville,…

Inspiring Others

Accountability, privatization and the devaluation of the career educator

By…

A Little Wisdom From Our Principal About Superintendents

October 29, 2013 by Larry Ferlazzo

What Should Principals Look for in Blended Classrooms?

In this thoughtful article in Principal Leadership, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Ian Pumpian (San Diego State University) give this definition of a blended classroom:

• It’s part of a formal education program.
• It takes place in a bricks-and-mortar school.
• Student learning happens partly online and partly in the…

• STUDENTS WHO ARE TAUGHT TO KNOW EVERYTHING EXCEED THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS!
• STUDENTS WHO ARE TAUGHT TO KNOW EVERYTHING KNOW MORE THAN STUDENTS WHO ARE TAUGHT TO “KNOW LESS”.
• TO…

Legislator, educator challenging ‘testing juggernaut’

Turning Down the Volume on Assumptions: Lessons about Close Reading

What drives us to use angry and destructive behavior and what drives us to be violent may be an inability to successfully express what is happening inside of us. Public schools have the opportunity to impact more future citizens of the world than any other institution.  Creating and maintaining emotional environments that teach, nurture, and maintain healthy behaviors is an essential element of our responsibility to maintain physically safe environments in which…

The Downside of Value-Added Evaluation of Teachers

In this troubling Teachers College Record article, Leo Casey (Albert Shanker Institute) analyzes the way the New York City Department of Education used value-added student test data to evaluate the effectiveness of 18,000 teachers based on their students’ state test scores from 2007 to 2010. The Teacher Data Reports were initially going to be used in a low-stakes manner – to help teachers…

…the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.” These are the words of Henry Lewis Stimson, a former US Secretary of State. Recently, I visited a high school in Connecticut that personifies a culture of trust. As a “trusted learning community” students are treated with respect and they rise to that expectation. This environment is a stark contrast to what we see playing out in the so many places in education today. The predominant culture of a test…