March 16th Ed Week

"Teachers Seek Ways to Gauge Rigor of Texts" This was amazing, a bunch of teachers sitting around trying to figure out at what grade level it might be appropriate to let students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One teacher opined that it would be alright for 8th graders and another that it wouldn't be appropriate before college. What a joke, when you consider the education level of the readers in Mark Twain's time. I think that the education field is has more than its share of "over educated under common sensed" professionals. If we are doing such a poor job of teaching that Huck Finn can't be read and understood by students till they are in college--our educational system is a lot worse off than I realized.

"Teacher Preparation: Build on What Works" I like the idea of "free teaching training".I think it is outrageous what we have to pay (go into debt)--so we can have the privilege of working in an underpaid under appreciated profession. I think it interesting that people expect that there is going to be an abundance of highly qualified teachers that want to live and work in our inner city schools. Unless one feels a true calling to work in that environment--it's probably not going to happen and if it does it's not going to last. If I were a young teacher with  small children the last thing I'm going to want to do is move them into a gang infested, drive by, crack cocaine using, housing project kind of a neighborhood. Unfortunate for the kids that live there, yes but reality--yes. So that means the only way children living in those neighborhoods can get a better education taught by better teachers is to bus them to the suburbs and teach them there. Will the kids like spending a couple of hours on a bus away from their familiar neighborhoods--probably not. So what's it going to take to put highly qualified teachers into urban schools--money. Tuition remission, extra pay(combat pay) for teaching in difficult and dangerous environments, relocation help and money when the tour of duty(no more than 4 years) is over.

March 9th Ed Week

"The High Stakes of Standards Based Accountability" article brought out some interesting points. The writer assumed that since students were having trouble on tests, going all the way back to 1983 when Nation at Risk was published, then it made no sense to raise the standards and tests because students are just continuing to fail at greater rates. Instead we should scrap the high stakes testing and go with something he calls "personalized education" Some suggestions he made were good like getting to know your students and universal preschool education, then he ventured into areas that are a little abstract like: "Each student would play a significant role in designing the curriculum, which would be anchored in the real world, not in the abstractions of most classrooms." Also, he offers that there should be no such thing as a "core curriculum. "classroom instruction would be minimal, teachers would become advisers who would guide students in educating themselves. They would tutor students and help them manage their time and energy"etc. All this would begin in middle school.
All I can say is your would have a hard time making this work with the top twenty percent of students, let alone with the struggling and underachieving students. And what kind of money would be required to provide this type of personalized instruction? This concept is pretty far out and impractical as far as I can tell.

"An Educator's Role in a Pop-Culture World" I certainly agree with his premise that pop-culture is an utterly corrupting influence on our society and children especially. It is unfortunate that greed fuels almost every aspect of our society. There is no level we will not stoop to for a buck. The problem is that we cannot stop the flow of garbage that the medial sends our way--anymore than we can sweep back the tide with a broom. As the author suggest with his "stone cutter" story all we can do is try to make an impact recognizing that we may only reach a few but that is better than reaching none. I like the way George Orwell put it in 1984: "How far away the future is no one can say--all we can do is try to expand the frontier of sanity one person at a time.

February 23 Ed Week

"Ky. School Ratchets Up Improvement" This article deals with the "turn-around" of a failed high school I found it to be a fascinating article. I had no idea how the process works. It certainly proves that it is possible to fix failing schools--even in with "challenging" demographics. However, the amount of money and oversight required is hard to understand. If this is the model of what it takes it probably isn't going to be done very often. So how do schools get so bad that they need this kind of reconstruction?

"Study Punctures Stereotypes About Social Status of Bullies" I didn't think this article was particularly helpful or even on track. Rather than clarifying  who is likely to bully it did more to muddy the waters. Sure, it may be possible that any child in a certain situation may exhibit some bullying behavior most of the serious bullying including physical violence is done by the kids with more sociopathic tendencies--just like in the adult world.
Children with capacities for compassion and empathy are less like likely to be bullies.