Thursday night’s school board meeting probably wasn’t what was anyone planned a month, week, or even a day before it happened. Even though the district seemed to know it would be a capacity crowd (a demonstration by the district-wide band, and renewal of charters–which always brings in supporters fearful of their school losing their location) […]

Since comments on this Jonathan Alter hit-piece against Diane Ravitch appears to have “closed” comments, I included my rebuttal here: Healthy Skepticism I am a teacher in a so-called failing school. I have spent my 10+ year career teaching in high poverty schools. Like most schools in poor neighborhoods, they have been low performing, and […]

via @ASCD on Twitter: NYT film critic calls Waiting for Superman “exemplary in its manipulative, superficial and dishonest piety” http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/01/the_vulture_critics_poll_the_c.html (A.O. Scott from NYT is 1/2 way down on WFS ) He also said it made him madder than any other film.

In my previous posts, I’ve discussed how teachers are backed against the wall in the reform argument, and this makes our own efforts at self-improvement harder to start. Here’s another bad place we find ourselves at in this debate. The argument usually goes like this: Reform-y type: All kids can learn, not all teachers can […]

In my prior post (The “Green Line”) I discussed the entrenched position of a lot of the arguments about education and education reform these days.  Here is one of my favorite arguments: Teacher: Your ideas have no basis in research, or the reality where I teach; Reform-y Type: You’re just for the status quo! Really, […]