A recent experience in my school district once again reminded me about what’s worth fighting for in the current education reform debate.  We hear, read, and see accusations of school failure.  I see quite the opposite.  One example of this stems from how a 2002 graduate of Southold Schools came back this year to give back—in a big way.

Arriving at school as an 8 year old non-English speaking immigrant from Nicaragua, Pete Castillo now owns a masonry design company.  The 31…

Truly, social investment 

Two decades ago, Harris Rosen, who grew up poor on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and became wealthy in the Florida hotel business, decided to shepherd part of his fortune into the troubled Orlando community of Tangelo Park, reports Lizette Alvarez for The New York Times. Twenty-one years later, with an infusion of $11 million of Mr. Rosen's money so far, Tangelo Park is a striking success story. Nearly all its seniors graduate from…

Who authorizes the authorizers?

A blog post by Arianna Prothero in Education Week looks at the continuing debate, and differing schools of thought, around charter authorization. Authorizers and how they make decisions have gotten more attention lately, especially in Ohio and Michigan, where state- and press-led investigations have turned up academic and financial failures at charters. Some have subsequently argued that weak authorizing practices lead to weak…

Want to retain teachers?

The combination of poor student performance and limited teacher experience makes it especially difficult for majority low-income schools across the country to fulfill strict guidelines under NCLB, writes educator Paul Barnwell in The Atlantic. Barnwell himself was a novice teacher in 2004 in the Teach Kentucky program, which put him in a classroom with minimal training. He quit his assignment by Christmas. Although some educators hit…

What we expect, what we believe, makes a difference. Our mindset matters. We do not have the right to pigeonhole children by not believing in their ability to learn better tomorrow than today. We do not have the right to stop trying to figure out how to engage more students and help them be more successful.  We do not have the right to determine, as Buchanan is willing to do, that "there were trade jobs and blue collar jobs and construction jobs" out there and…

Option 3: Actually USE the smartphones…

Asking students to work in complete isolation…

Don’t Argue For Your Limitations…

Well-designed professional development solves problems…

Leaders Don't Boss…

Hollywood, HBO, and School Reform (Part 2)…

Virtual Field Trips and Education (Technology) Inequalities…

From Superhero Teacher to Bad Teacher: Hollywood Films Then and Now (Part 1)…

What is leadership....really? Who wants a leader....really? Is leadership always just a moment in time when all things come together? Could we believe that the Florida Superintendent of the Year for 2015 was a leader? Who would believe how soon after receiving that honor the superintendent would be terminated with a buyout of over a million dollars? And, who would believe that this resilient woman would become the Commissioner of Education in New York State within months after the…

There are many education critics or analysts who think they see a convergence at the very top of the society: rich capitalists somehow on the same page with far-left ideologues. Does that make sense?

 But what exactly is a Bill Gates? He gave $1 billion, give or take, to force Common Core on the country. Many people think this will make the country dumber, despite all the rosy claims. But what's in it for Bill…