Filed under Elementary (K-8) …

Six Ways to Fall in Love With Teaching Again

Issues with the bureaucracy of education, funding, changes in class size, class structure, and mode of instruction, as well as student issues, all contribute to our falling out of love with the teaching profession. Additionally, oftentimes personal obligations and responsibilities add stressors that create burdens and affect our happiness in our personal and work lives, … Continue reading →

What Exactly is Personalized Learning?

It remains to be seen exactly how and where Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, will spend the estimated $45 billion they’ve declared they will donate to charitable ventures, including education. But their announcement this week made one thing clear: in education, the two are focused on the potential of “personalized learning.” For … Continue reading →

The U.S. Congress Passes Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

[Last] week’s U.S. House passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, makes it clear: If you want to see education policy in the next few years, look to state capitols, not Washington, D.C. The current version of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act, created … Continue reading →

Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often highstakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful. Specifically, the administration … Continue reading →

Can We Interest You in Teaching?

Teaching can’t compete. When the economy improves and job prospects multiply, college students turn their attention elsewhere, to professions that promise more money, more independence, more respect. That was one takeaway from a widely discussed story in The Times on Sunday by Motoko Rich, who charted teacher shortages so severe in certain areas of the … Continue reading →

Atlanta Educators Convicted in School Cheating Scandal

In a dramatic conclusion to what has been described as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, a jury here on Wednesday convicted 11 educators for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools. On … Continue reading →

No Child Left Behind Law Faces Its Own Reckoning

Ginn Academy, the first and only public high school in Ohio just for boys, was conceived to help at-risk students make it through school — experimenting with small classes, a tough discipline code and life coaches around the clock. Its graduation rate was close to 88 percent last year, compared with 64 percent for theCleveland … Continue reading →

Why More Black Parents Are Homeschooling Their Children

Marvell Robinson was in kindergarten when a classmate poured an anthill on him at the playground. After that, the gibes became sharper: “Why are you that color?” one boy taunted at the swing set, leaving Marvell scared and speechless. The slow build of racial bullying would push his mother, Vanessa Robinson, to pull him from … Continue reading →

In India, Revealing the Children Left Behind

Right now, all over rural India, this is happening: Two local volunteers with a few days’ training come into the village. They knock on randomly selected doors, asking to see all children ages 6 to 16 who live there. In the front yard of the house, they test the children one by one in reading … Continue reading →