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In an earlier post, Humanities and the DY/DAN Method, I linked to Dan Meyer’s blog and his take on [...]

So TMAO’s post about his decision to leave teaching has made some waves on various blogs. I’d like to offer some personal perspectives (which he’s not asking for), but I’m not interested in second-guessing his reasons. I’m pulling some quotes from his post as a jumping-off point to respond to a few of his comments [...]

Mike Petrilli, in a recent post on the Flypaper blog, comments on a study in Philadelphia that measured the impact of a “healthy-eating” initiative in schools. Petrilli’s argument is that, since the study found that school intervention in students’ diets measurably decreased the incidence of obesity in those students, schools can have a “big [...]

I’ve been reading the “Bridging Differences” blog for a few months now and love it. These are two really smart, well-informed, thoughtful, and passionate educators engaged in one of the best examples of extended civil debate I’ve found online … and the hyperbole is justified.
A few days ago, Deborah Meier posted “Let’s Play with [...]

The Freakonomics Blog (hosted by the New York Times) held a quorum on standardized testing and posted the contributions yesterday. The questions were:
Should there be less standardized testing in the current school system, or more? Should all schools, including colleges, institute exit exams?
Of the five responses, W. James Popham and Thomas Toch had the [...]

Education Sector has posted the text of a presentation1 delivered by co-founder and co-director Thomas Toch. In it, Toch gives a brief but helpful recap of recent educational policy struggles, defines three main areas of tension, and suggests the likely outcome of each:

National vs. local authority in school reform; verdict: national standards are inevitable
Low-performing [...]

While preparing for my next class session, I re-read John Taylor Gatto’s 1990 “New York City Teacher of the Year” acceptance speech. It’s worth re-reading regularly. It angers, frustrates, depresses, and inspires me. It scares me, too … scared for myself, for our students, for our future. I think we [...]

Doug Noon is talking about reform and merit-based pay on his blog today. I’ve been exchanging a few brief comments with TMAO about merit-based pay in connection with NCLB. I found the Eduwonkette post that Doug referenced to be helpful in thinking about this issue. The discussion in comparison with other professions [...]

It’s been an interesting couple of years for me, wading around in the online education discussions. I’m wondering, though, if we’re making any progress toward genuine reform (beyond what the cool tech tools are and how they can be used … or sharing lesson plans and personal experiences).
It seems to me that substantial progress [...]

TMAO brought my attention to these prepared remarks of California Democratic Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. TMAO quotes this line:
Even with all of these changes, we will not meet our national goal of closing the achievement gap until and unless we close the teacher quality gap.
While I strongly [...]