The following is an excerpt of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School, by 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal, a senior at Syosset High School in Woodbury, New York.  On a personal note, I had the pleasure of meeting Nikhil at last year's Long Island Tech Summit, and look forward to reading his new book.…

According to creators, funding for the PBS literacy program, Reading Rainbow was cancelled as a result of No Child Left Behind. Now it is back as an app.  For more details, check out the video on my literacy blog, Literacy Connections.

Happy reading,

Christine

I was invited to attend the Annual Conference on Evidence-based Policy-making and Innovation sponsored by the National Association of State Boards of Education, NASBE. The conference was well planned with excellent leaders and speakers in each of the sessions. These were the very sessions the members of NASBE needed to consider the weighty decisions they need to make on policy required by their positions on their State Boards of Education. I was there as an observer and a blogger and I was…

If common core fails, then what?

By Tom Whitby on October 18th, 2012 

Smart Brief Blogs

Teachers are the key, top educators agree

Teachers are the key to education reforms and improvements.

Many countries have put a lot of effort into…

Fiction vs. nonfiction smackdown

National Teacher of the Year: Give Us a Career Path

Rebecca Mieliwocki, the 2012 National Teacher of the Year, receives congratulations from President Barack Obama during a White House ceremony in April 2012.

—Charles Dharapak/AP

Obama, Romney have different views on education

(Photo: Michael Reynolds, AFP/Getty Images)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Obama…

October 18, 2012

Your middle grade and young adult students may be interested in the new book by Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be at This Hour?  For more info on the book, the upcoming signing, or the sardonic wit of this wonderful author, visit my Literacy Connections blog.

Happy reading,

Christine

School Reform, But From Whose Perspective?

—Jori Bolton

Public K-12 schooling is a…

Anonymous on Flappiness.com 

http://flappinessis.com/2011/12/01/an-apology-from-your-childs-former-teacher/

Dear Parents of Special-Needs Children I’ve Taught In the Past,

I need to make…

Today's Newsday contains an article in which associate commissioner for curriculum and assessments, Ken Wagner comments on the new assessments aligned for the first time with the Common Core.  He states, "the expectation is that results from those assessments may go down."  Interestingly, there was no comment on using those test results to evaluate teachers.  Read more about it on my Literacy Connections blog.

I am both a parent of a special needs child and a teacher for over 25 years. Once again as the school year approaches, as a parent, I find that it is not only my child who is anxious about going back to school but I too am anxious about sending him there. It is not my child’s disability in this instance that causes me anxiety but rather it is the uncertainty of knowing whether or not my child’s teachers truly understand just how important their role is in the education and emotional…