Since most states have passed or are rushing to pass education legislation targeting reading practices and policies, here are guiding principles for what any federal or state legislation directly or indirectly impacting reading should and should not do.
Read MoreFor years charter school advocates have claimed that charter schools have something new and innovative to share with public schooling. It’s a myth. Charter schools bring nothing new to the table. Any innovative charter schools are likely run by real teachers.
Read MoreThat idea is championed by the current resident of the White House, although he has likely given it very little thought, very dangerously championed by the current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and most dangerously championed by the billionaires that more and more control all that happens in this country.
Read MoreUltimately, continuing down the current road to reading reform as if we just need to be more demanding of teachers and students in the crucial last mile is continuing to recognize the negative impact of poverty and inequity on children’s ability to read and teachers’ effectiveness in teaching reading.
Read MoreCorporate school reform breaks schools apart. While children in urban and rural areas are hurt, suburban schools face difficulties as well. Teachers watch as their schools change. They are stressed and often look for a way out. Yet their ideas are critical for good teaching to occur.
Read MoreTeaching is one of the most misunderstood interactions in the world. Some people see it as a mere transaction, a job: you do this, I’ll pay you that. The input is your salary. The output is learning. These are distinctly measurable phenomena. One is calculated in dollars and cents. The other in academic outcomes, usually standardized test scores. The higher the salary, the more valued the teacher. The higher the test scores, the better the job she has done. But that’s not all.
Read MoreRemote judgment is a misuse of timeless principles of assessment and evaluation. It dismisses trust as a core value in the teaching-learning relationship–are students going to trust the teacher who’s taking cues from an invisible wizard? It suggests that teachers can’t trust their own judgment. It ignores context–and context is everything in learning that sticks to brains.
Read MoreWhat if you knew of a single instructional strategy that research has shown improves decoding, fluency and reading comprehension? Would you use it? Of course, you say. And yet one of the most under used literacy strategies is such a well documented strategy: the strategy of rereading.
Read MoreIn the past few years, it has been common to see media reports such as these that highlight sensational incidents of political conflicts on American college campuses. But are headlines and anecdotal reports telling the real story?
Read MoreThey were Democratic Presidential candidates! And boy-oh-boy did they get sent packing with a ton of homework! Teachers, students, parents and community members from all over the country sat them down with instructions on how to improve the public education system. Kudos to the candidates for agreeing to listen.
Read MoreSeparating fact from fiction is a vital skill for civic engagement, but students can be good fact-checkers only if they have a broader understanding of how news and information are produced and consumed in the digital age. Here are five questions students should be taught to ask.
Read MoreWith No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards, some adults have been led to believe that four- and five-year-old children should read by the end of kindergarten. Preschoolers are pushed to be ready for formal reading instruction by the time they enter kindergarten.
Read MoreTeaching is an exhausting job. If you’re a parent, you know how tiring it is with just one or two kids. Imagine having a room full of them
Read MoreInstead of reducing the writing process to a script and demanding a definitive thesis from students before they draft, we should offer structure through a broader array of ways to begin a text.
Read MoreEducation systems around the world can tackle the mental health crisis among children – if they set out to do so. And countries that prioritise children’s happiness and well-being offer a strong starting point.
Read MoreMany of our world’s most pressing challenges arise between groups who perceive the chasm between their opposing views as too vast to bridge. Conversely, discovering shared preferences, personality traits and common values serves as a powerful social glue.
Read MoreSerious education issues in public schools are recycled because the ulterior motive of some is to end public education. Research is repeatedly ignored. Why are school administrators clueless? How is it that legislators repeatedly recreate policy we know is harmful for students? Each heading contains a link to proof.
Read MoreTeachers can do much to foster a love of reading in their children. Like all worthy learning goals, this instruction must be planned, intentional, explicit, and persistent. Most importantly, it must grow out of the joy the teacher herself gets out of leading the literate life.
Read MoreHarsh and racially disparate discipline practices are widespread in America’s schools.
Read MoreTo teach writing is inextricable from teaching thinking. Simultaneously, those of us teaching writing can distinguish between something like good writing that can sit next to poor thinking, and flawed writing that includes important aspects of complex thinking.
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