A high-quality public education can build much-needed skills and knowledge. It can help children reach their God-given potential. It can stabilize communities and democracies. It can strengthen economies. It can combat the kind of fear and despair that evolves into hatred.
Category Archive: 1957
Teachers need time to engage with colleagues – whether shadowing, mentoring, co-teaching or conferring. They need a voice in school decisions and to be trusted as professionals.
I’ve always admired President Chavez for standing up to imperialism and the meddling of the American government in South America.
I’ve worked in public education for 30 years – as a teacher, a lawyer and union leader. I’ve visited hundreds of schools and districts. I’ve seen leaders from the classroom to the national stage who have been willing to set aside their differences and do the hard work that’s necessary to create real, enduring change.
58% of the American public are with us. We’re preaching to the choir, but the choir’s not singing, if all of the 58% started singing, this war would end.
We can’t allow any war for imperialism or greed to be fought in our names. This is what we need to keep fighting for.
So what really gets me is these chickenhawks, who sent our kids to die, without ever serving in a war themselves. They don’t know what it’s all about.
Learning should be engaging. Testing should not be the be all and end all. All students should have a broad curriculum that includes the arts and enrichment. Students should have opportunities to work in teams and engage in project-based learning. And student and family well-being should be front and center.
Schools should be places of learning and joy, not testing and agita.
Beginning with the No Child Left Behind law and continuing today with Race to the Top, the federal emphasis on standardized assessments has become so excessive that it has modified state and district behavior in troubling ways.