Commentaries

Search Commentaries

615 in the collection  

Portraits of Thinking: The Manual and Mental in General Surgery
By Mike Rose
Publication Date: June 23, 2009
Quick Summary: This is from Mike Rose's blog, June 23, 2009:
http://www.mikerosebooks.blogspot.com/

Mike muses on the notice given to Shop Class as Soulcraft and wonders if we as a society might be predisposed--even be just a little bit ready--to rethink our received ideas about thinking, about what it means to be intelligent.

Print and Deliver: Using The Peition
By Yvonne Siu-Runyan
Publication Date: June 17, 2009
Quick Summary: Another member of the Coalition for Better Education shows that this group has what it takes. Yvonne exhibits several excellent strategies for speaking truth to power.

One Part Creativity: Zero Parts Recipe
By Jennifer Reese
Publication Date: June 12, 2009
Quick Summary: from Slate, June 2, 2009. Fascinating issues raised here, not unrelated to teaching. I speak as a cook whose scientist husband gets upset if he sees her stirring up a pot of something without a recipe on the counter. His favorite question is, "What is this?" and he definitely doesn't want to hear it's something I invented. So as dinner time nears at my house, there's always a cookbook nearby on my kitchen counter and I am always ready with a French- or Italian-sounding name.

It reminds me of my lesson plan writing days. That said, the reviewer's sponge cake tasting like green tea invented makes me think my husband has a point. I like my green tea in a steaming cup and my cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Here's what a reviewer on Amazon said: "This is not a cookbook -- indeed, it is an anti-cookbook. Those expecting complex recipes, or the "best" way to make something, will be dissatisfied. This is a manual for real cooks who want to understand the fundamental underpinnings of what makes food FOOD in order to play, tweak, recontextualize, and personalize their methods in infinite variations. It's a book for culinary explorers who don't wish to be, pardon the pun, spoon-fed."

Translate that statement into teaching and the current push for National Standards and you have some insight into what real teachers are about.

Here's a snippet from the book (available on Amazon):
Bread is alive until you cook it, and so it's an especially complex system that's affected by many variables, especially temperature, but also by how long it's mixed, how long it rises, how long it rises again before being bake, and how it's shaped. All these ariables affect the finished bread, so you need to pay attention as you practice."

Read this again, with this substitute, "Children are alive until you . . . " Make substitutions as you go.

Students Aren't Customers; Education Is Not a Commodity
By William Astore, Tomdispatch.com
Publication Date: June 02, 2009
Quick Summary: June 1, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140318

Offering three myths--and three realitites-- about higher education, Astore argues that students need more than a utilitarian, vocational, and narrow education. It's simply not enough to prepare students for a job: We need to prepare them for life, while challenging them to think beyond the confines of their often parochial and provincial upbringings.

Beware of Corporate Politicos Talking About Reform
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: June 05, 2009
Quick Summary: Corporate-politico school reform is worse than stealing ice cream from children.

America's Prisons: Is There Hope?
By By Helen Epstein
Publication Date: May 26, 2009
Quick Summary: This is from The New York Review of Books, June 11, 2009.

A high school diploma itself seems to help keep black men out of trouble. The likelihood of incarceration drops fourfold among black high school graduates compared to those who make it only to tenth or eleventh grade.

The Case for Working With Your Hands
By Matthew B. Soulcraft
Publication Date: May 24, 2009
Quick Summary: Find an earlier excerpt from this book here. In another essay, Crawford asks educators to consider why students should study science and takes a best-selling high school physics textbook to task for its pathetic answers.

Read a review of the book.

Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Get out of your cubicle, and get those cuticles dirty!
By Michael Agger
Publication Date: May 21, 2009
Quick Summary: Book Review, from Slate, May 19, 2009.

When Matthew Crawford finished his doctorate in political philosophy at the University of Chicago, he took a job at a Washington think tank. Five months later he quit and started doing motorcycle repair in a decaying factory in Richmond, Va. Here is a commentary on his story.

What Is To Be Done?
By Staughton Lynd
Publication Date: May 20, 2009
Quick Summary: This was Keynote Speech at Rouge Forum Conference, May 16, 2009, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan.

We can all wish we'd been there--to hear this call to action from this towering figure and to pay him tribute.

YES! Make every school a Freedom School!

Find a bio of Straughton Lynd here.

Catch the light and color when you take time to read
By Ramnath Subramanian
Publication Date: May 15, 2009
Quick Summary: from the El Paso Times, May 14, 2009.

Go forth and explore your classroom joy.

A path to building a functional public school system
By Rogier Gregoire Ed.D.
Publication Date: May 14, 2009
Quick Summary: NOTE: This is a combination of several comments made by Rogier Gregoire on EDDRA, Gerald Bracey's discussion list.

May 14, 2009

Now I Know Just How Bad Open Court Can Be
By Anonymous Teacher/Parent
Publication Date: April 23, 2009
Quick Summary: April 24, 2009
Here is an inside description of just how bad
things are--for kindergartners and for teachers
forced into professional development workshops
aligned with the basal programs.

'Alan Greenspan II' Heads Education Department
Arne Duncan's Newspeak -- and Ayn Rand/'Free Market' Ideology-- -- Means Bullying States Into Forced School Closings, Massive Privatization
By George N. Schmidt
Publication Date: April 18, 2009
Quick Summary: April 15, 2009

Ken Libby's comment shows why you should subscribe to Substance. Substance subscribers allow Substancenews.net to continue.

This is a must read for anyone interested in current education "reform" efforts.

Duncanspeak is scary. I see it in the Portland Public Schools, where I am a student teacher. Our superintendent, Carole Smith, also refers to our portfolio of schools. Board members talk of "failing" schools - elementary and middle schools in poor neighborhoods that were turned into K-8 models by a $25 million grant from Bill Gates and a local philanthrocapitalist. Add in Portland's open enrollment system (students can easily switch schools even before NCLB's open transfer policy kicks in).

Reversing the market mechanisms are tremendously difficult. Kim Smith, former TFA member and influential member of the New Schools Venture Fund supporting a variety of Chicago charter schools, notes public education can be privatized by outsourcing services - food service, busing, textbooks. And, of course, through the charter school movement driven by Gates/Broad/Walton.

Keep up the good fight,

Getting the Word Out
Countering the fear mongers about American Public Schools
By Gerald Bracey
Publication Date: April 14, 2009
Quick Summary: This is the text of an invited address given by Gerald R. Bracey at the annual convention of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego on Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Dr. Bracey was invited to give the "Charles Degarmo Invited Lecture" to AERA. Dr. Bracey explained in an e-mail two days before he delivered the address,"What follows are the first few pages of an invited address I will give at the annual convention of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego on Tuesday. The pages quote a lot of statistics from President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan and then show that the statistics are all wrong. It pains me to do this since I campaigned for Obama, canvassed for him, donated to the campaign and, of course, voted for him. But listening to what he says about education, it is easy to see why Diane Ravitch said that in education, Obama is a third term for Bush and Duncan is Margaret Spellings in drag.

Arne Duncan and the Chicago Success Story: Myth or Reality?
By Jitu Brown,, Eric (Rico) Gutstein , and Pauline Lipman
Publication Date: April 11, 2009
Quick Summary: We cannot build toward education for social justice without real partnerships in which teachers understand that their interests and those of their students' neighborhoods are fundamentally aligned and that they need to express real solidarity with the ongoing struggles of those communities.

This is from the Spring 2009 issue of Rethinking Schools. You should subscribe. You need to read the rest of the issue:

Dunking on Arne Duncan
By Dave Zirin

When '21st-Century Schooling' Just Isn't Good Enough: A Modest Proposal
By Alfie Kohn

Goodbye to Schools as Businesses
By the Editors of Rethinking Schools

And lots more.

School Wars
By Gary Stager
Publication Date: April 09, 2009
Quick Summary: from the September issue of GOOD Magazine.

To 'Pete,' Who's Lost in the Mainstream
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: March 29, 2009
Quick Summary: I am provoked to post this old Commentary from Education Week by these remarks by Herb Kohl in the preface of Reading, How To that got posted to a Fair Test offshoot: "There is no reading problem. There are problem teachers and problem schools. Most people who fail to learn to read in our society are victims of a fiercely competitive system of training that requires failure. If talking and walking were taught in most schools we might end up with as many mutes and cripples as we now have non-readers. However, learning to read is no more difficult than learning to walk or talk. The skill can be acquired in a natural and informal manner and in a variety of settings ranging from school to home to the streets." Later, in Chapter 2, he writes, "If a youngster fails to acquire the skill or comply with the rules of learning, he or she is considered retarded or criminal, that is, in more polite school language, a learning or behavior problem."

I wish Mr. Kohl could have been a fly on the wall to all the "natural and informal manner" strategies I employed with Pete. I considered him neither retarded nor criminal. I regard our note exchange as a triumph of sorts but certainly it was not enough. Now, I wonder just what Herb Kohl would have done. I also wonder what he's doing now to fight the destructive elements of NCLB. I hope he signed The Petition to end NCLB.

The Education Agenda is a War Agenda
Connecting Reason to Power and Power to Resistance
By Rich Gibson
Publication Date: March 27, 2009
Quick Summary: from Z Net
March 23, 2009

The authors ask a crucial question and explain why it is so critical that we come to terms with answering it: How long will educators, kindergarten through universities, continue to exchange reasonably good pay, benefits, and some security for staying mum about the nature of imperialist warfare, for implementing racist high stakes exams that not only intimidate and make dishonest everyone in a class room, but that also segregate children wrongly by class and race-under a fictitious veneer of science, hiding privilege behind a veneer of accomplishment?

Recovering Teacher
By Jo Scott-Cole
Publication Date: March 26, 2009
Quick Summary: A "recovering teacher" remembers a colleague who did not fit the "perfect teacher" fantasy that does not make allowances for imperfection or dissatisfaction.


Memoir Journal.


Don't miss it.

A School Bus from Nowhere: Connecting with “at risk” kids requires crazy and crucial hope
By Robin Cody
Publication Date: March 24, 2009
Quick Summary: Excerpted in the Utne Reader from Portland(Autumn 2008), a spiritual and civic-minded magazine published by the University of Portland, Oregon; .

What Bernie Madoff Can Teach Us about Accountability in Education
By Dr. Walter Stroup
Publication Date: March 24, 2009
Quick Summary: From href=http://hobokencurriculumproject.blogspot.com
/2009/02/what-bernie-madoff-can-teach-us-
about.html"> Hoboken Curriculum Project, Feb.
19, 2009, a final version of this commentary
appeared in Education Week, March 18,
2009.

Certainly the new Obama administration has taken
several Bernie Madoff lessons to heart, including
surrounding itself with true believers. No one
else need apply. And there's more. . . .

Supporting parents, teachers, and/or students who take a bold stand
By Juanita Doyon and Phyllis Fletcher, KUOW News
Publication Date: March 21, 2009
Quick Summary: It is both instructive and inspiring to read about the work of the Parent Empowerment Network's work.

It is a shock to read how the Washington State Education Department treats students with special needs and their teachers.

Where Bad Education Really Comes From
By Sam Smith
Publication Date: March 13, 2009
Quick Summary: Pieces like this come from Sam Smith's Progressive Review, which is delivered to members e-mail box. Membership is easy and free.

March 12, 2009

The Obamagogues' Liars and Our Future
By Rich Gibson
Publication Date: March 12, 2009
Quick Summary: It is not our education system. It is Theirs. It is not our economy.
It is Theirs.

Why education reforms have thus far failed And a proposal
By Marion Brady
Publication Date: March 10, 2009
Quick Summary: Congress, having become America’s school board, is in position to decide the future of American education. It can choose to continue the present reactionary thrust of reform, freezing in rigid, permanent place with standards and tests the familiar but primitive, deeply flawed, 19th Century curriculum. OR. . . .

Duncan and Obama: Airballs
By Gerald Bracey
Publication Date: March 06, 2009
Quick Summary: from Huffington Post, March 5, 2009.

My only 'quarrel,' is the claim that Obama was
issuing "wonderful oratory on education" before
the election. Not so. I've been issuing warnings
for several years about his allegiance to
standardized tests and merit pay. That said, this
commentary is on target.

The KULT of KIPP: An Essay Review
By Jim Horn
Publication Date: March 05, 2009
Quick Summary: March 5, 2009

This review is from Education Review, 12(3). Jim Horn, PhD, is Associate Professor at Cambridge College, Cambridge, MA where he teaches foundations courses in the EdD program. He also is the keeper of Schools Matter, a must-read weblog.

Crazy Talk
By Doug Noon
Publication Date: March 01, 2009
Quick Summary: February 23, 2009
Doug Noon has been teaching in Fairbanks, Alaska since 1983. He teaches sixth-grade at Denali Elementary School, and holds a M.Ed. with a focus in language and literacy. He lives with his wife and family outside of Fairbanks. He blogs at Borderland, a featured resource on this site.

This essay appears on
Change.org

E Pluribus Unum?
By Chester E. Finn Jr. and Deborah Meier
Publication Date: February 27, 2009
Quick Summary: Find this article in
Education Next , Spring 2009 (vol. 9, no. 2)

Chester Finn Jr. and Deborah Meier face off over the merits of a national curriculum. Finn advocates a voluntary system. Meier questions the likelihood of gaining consensus on the curriculum’s content and prefers a democratic school structure.

No Dog Left Behind: The Fallacy of 'Tough Love' Reform
By Marion Brady
Publication Date: February 11, 2009
Quick Summary: Posted with the author's permission. from Education Week, Jan. 28, 2009

Post this fine piece in the faculty room. Send it home to parents. Send it to members of the House & Senate Education Committees.

Dear Members and Friends of PEN:
By Juanita Doyon
Publication Date: February 11, 2009
Quick Summary: Under the leadership of Juanita Doyon, The Parent Empowerment Network is an impressive organization. Join them--even from afar--and you will learn a lot about grassroots organizing--and about never giving up the fight for students.

How Well Do You Know Your Children?<
By Lisa Belkin
Publication Date: January 23, 2009
Quick Summary: from the New York Times Magazine

Obama's betrayal of public education? Arne Duncan and the corporate model of schooling
By Henry A. Giroux and Kenneth Saltman
Publication Date: December 18, 2008
Quick Summary: from Truthout, Dec. 17, 2008

This is packed with information teachers should take to heart. For starters, The hidden curriculum is that testing be used as a ploy to de-skill teachers by reducing them to mere technicians, that students be similarly reduced to customers in the marketplace. . . .

When will teachers resist the destruction of what used to be their profession?

Flotsam and Jetsam: Movement Time
By Sam Smith
Publication Date: December 15, 2008
Quick Summary: Sam Smith is the editor of the very savvy The
Progressive Review, with the e-mail commentary
Undernews.
http://www.prorev.com

My Story
By Fakhria
Publication Date: December 05, 2008
Quick Summary: As Cindy Lutenbacher explains below, this is an extraordinary child being given a chance because of the devoted work of volunteers. Read on for her remarkable story and that of the Saturday School, which has evolved from four sisters and two volunteers to seventy-five students and thirty volunteers. A group of volunteers are working to go even further. You will read what they are up to in Cindy's message below.





You will see that you can help in this remarkable effort to rescue refugee teens pretty much abandoned by the public school system.

Help! I suddenly stopped going to work
By Cary Tennis, Advice columnist on Salon.com
Publication Date: December 05, 2008
Quick Summary: The advice given to a young woman who stopped
going to work two months ago may startle you. . .
and uplift you, if you let it.

Dec. 5, 2008
http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2008/12/05/quit
_working/index.html?source=newsletter

The Child Trap
The rise of overparenting
By Joan Acocella
Publication Date: November 19, 2008
Quick Summary: from The New Yorker, Nov. 17, 2008

Optimism and Obamagogue
By Rich Gibson
Publication Date: November 14, 2008
Quick Summary: This essay first appeared on a list devoted to literacy concerns. Pointing out that justice demands both organization and a sense of moral right, Rich Gibson explains what we can do and why we must do it.

Homework for Obama
By Bruce Fuller
Publication Date: November 10, 2008
Quick Summary: This is from the Education Watch blog at the NY
Times.

Bruce Fuller is a professor of education and
public policy at the University of California at
Berkeley.

By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: November 10, 2008
Quick Summary:

With Malign Intent
What’s Behind the Drive for Standardized Testing
By Steven Miller
Publication Date: November 10, 2008
Quick Summary: This report is an expanded version of a speech
given by Steven Miller on November 1, 2008.
The speech was part of a public forum on "How
Standardized Tests are Ruining Public Education"
that took place at the Lansdowne Campus of
Camosun College in Victoria, Canada.

New Rothstein Book on Accountability: Review and Discussion
By Monty Neill and Richard Rothstein
Publication Date: October 29, 2008
Quick Summary: Monty Neill reviews an important new book, and then he and the author discuss specific points in the review. We all benefit from such a discussion.

An Open Letter To State Farm Insurance
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: June 28, 2009
Quick Summary: Ohanian offers a reply to an offer form State Farm Insurance.

Test mania and distractions take the joy out of learning
By Todd Portnowitz
Publication Date: October 26, 2008
Quick Summary: from the Orlando Sentinel, New Voices: A forum
for readers under 30, October 25, 2008

The trials of teaching
By Cherie Bell
Publication Date: October 25, 2008
Quick Summary: from the Dallas Morning News, Oct. 23,
2008

Flotsam and Jetsam: Ann
By Sam Smith
Publication Date: October 23, 2008
Quick Summary: Undernews is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who has covered Washington under nine presidents and edited alternative journals since 1964. You can subscribe to Smith's perceptive, inspiring outrageous, funny daily notes on life in our time and have it sent by e-mail. Sometimes, in the midst of incisive comment on corporate politicos such as you will read nowhere else, Sam offers a humanistic bit like this one. The image of a nine-year-old child thinking about floating on her back in the middle of the ocean if her boat gets torpedoed is haunting. We can't offer today's nine-year-olds even that small hope against NCLB's torpedos.

Is a Dysfunctional Family a Presidential Prerequisite?
By Sue Shellenbarger
Publication Date: October 22, 2008
Quick Summary: from the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 22, 2008. There is an interesting slide show here

Education, Politics, and a Hunger Strike: A Social Movement's Struggle for Education in Chicago's' Little Village Community
By Gabriel E. Cortez
Publication Date: October 17, 2008
Quick Summary: This is from a dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Educational Policy Studies
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008

Here are a few excerpts from this dissertation
showing the efforts by the Little Village
community to challenge Chicago Public School
policy that minimizes the voice of local
communities. It is low-income communities of
color, like Little Village, that have become
expendable to the new policies and goals of urban
public education. The dissertation shows how we
all have a stake in this struggle if we care at
all about democracy.

The New Kindergarten
By Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call
Publication Date: October 16, 2008
Quick Summary: From the Autumn 2008 Wilson Quarterly

The authors show that universal pre-K isn't as rosy as it is cracked up to be.

Math wasn’t Einstein’s strong point, but how bad was he? Very, very bad, says a ruthless new book...
By George Johnson
Publication Date: October 13, 2008
Quick Summary: A book review from the Los Angeles Times, Oct.
12, 2008

Even the great genius of Albert Einstein stumbled
when it came to calculations.

M.T.A.
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: October 03, 2008
Quick Summary: New York Times Obituary: Nick Reynolds, Kingston Trio Harmonizer, Dies at 75

A Policy with Punch
By Marion Brady
Publication Date: October 03, 2008
Quick Summary: Marion Brady offers a challenge to school board members that we all need to heed, pointing out that people don’t abuse or abandon social institutions that help them meet a need. This article is from The American School Board Journal, October 2008.

Friend
By a parent
Publication Date: October 01, 2008
Quick Summary: In March 2008, this parent wrote My Little Professor, a quite extraordinary account of her son, diagnosed with Asperger's. Now she has started Asperger's A Love Story, a blog.

INTERview: Hans Ohanian: A professor of physics explores the human failings of genius in a new book, Einstein’s Mistakes.
By Joshua Brown
Publication Date: September 24, 2008
Quick Summary: This is from The View, Sept. 24, 2005.
Ohanian's new book shows how Einstein used a
sleepwalker's intuition — rather than force of
logic — to catch the tail of a cunning universe.

The Thinker
By Jonathan Mahler
Publication Date: September 22, 2008
Quick Summary: from the New York Times Magazine, Sept. 21, 2008.

“My view is that you really fall into a trap when
you start allowing what you believe about your
students to dictate how you teach your
discipline,” he answered. “Too often these days
we end up setting up our courses in light of what
we believe about our students and we end up not
teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking
them.”

Get Ready, Get Set, Vote
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Quick Summary: Skills associated with success in kindergarten speak to corporate politicos. Or should. Skills listed here are from the San Francisco Chronicle, September 16, 2008.

Why an Undemocratic Capitalism Has Brought Public Education to Its Knees
By Richard A. Gibboney
Publication Date: September 17, 2008
Quick Summary: The public schools are being punished for the
achievement gap, which they did not create and
cannot close. Mr. Gibboney urges educators to
rise up and fight to protect public education and
democracy, which will both collapse if our
society refuses to take the steps necessary to
eliminate poverty.

From Phi Delta Kappan September 2008

Here's What Teachers Need
By Yvonne Siu-Runyan
Publication Date: September 12, 2008
Quick Summary: This is from the Education Week blog, Aug. 26,
2008.

Great and Imperfect
By Darron McMahon
Publication Date: September 05, 2008
Quick Summary: From The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 5,
2008.

Are Advanced Placement Courses Diminishing Liberal Arts Education?
By Paul Von Blum
Publication Date: September 02, 2008
Quick Summary: This Commentary, published in Education Week, Sept. 3, 2008, is posted here with the permission of the author. Every parent who has a child tempted by the AP hype should read it.

The problem with praise: Author says self-esteem kick is hobbling society
By Kevin O'Connor
Publication Date: August 31, 2008
Quick Summary: from the Rutland Herald, August 31, 2008. This book offrs an antidote to our culture's obsession with perfect children.

Paul Goodman, 30 Years Later: Growing Up Absurd; Compulsory Mis-education, and The Community of Scholars; and The NewReformation—A Retrospective
By James S. Kaminsky
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Quick Summary: Teachers College Record Volume 108 Number 7, 2006, p. 1339-1361

Some of us are still working to hold on to that "romantic humanism" to which Paul Goodman gave strong voice. Say his name, and there are a few elders who will start expounding. Is there anyone writing today who will produce that same nostalgic reverence among aging educators 50 years hence?

As the author rightly observes, Goodman’s educational agenda was about personal liberty and authenticity, not social revolution or academic performance.

Note to teachers who say they have to do DIBELS because they're afraid for their jobs: Paul Goodman pointed out that if you have to choose between bread and liberty, it is better to choose liberty.

Finding a Loony List While Searching for Literacy
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Quick Summary: This review was published in Education Week May 6, 1987. Ohanian asks what you make of a list of cultural need-to-know terms that includes the trombone but not the tuba, Fresno but not Ghana, Kenya, Nagasaki, Sri Lanka, and Armenia. It's a bizarre list that includes Onan but not Ruth, Naomi, or Esther. Although this review of E. D. Hirsch's cultural determinism is twenty years old, the issue is as current as today's newspaper headlines.

Using a National Test to Commodotize Children
By Michael T. Martin
Publication Date: August 21, 2008
Quick Summary: Ohanian Comment:I can't emphasize enough how important it is for educators and parents who care about public schools to become aware of the dangers of NAEP.

For more info on how dastardly the NAEP is, take a look at the kinds of questions they ask and how they score the answers.

For some context on Bob Wise's remarks on C-Span which provoked Michael Martin's comment, see Gerald Bracey's Huffington Post.

We must keep informing people about how shoddy the NAEP is. The corporate-politicos and their Standardisto allies want to turn it into the National Exam. Michael Martin's observations are must reading.

Accountability Meets the Corporate Achievement Gap
By Peter Campbell
Publication Date: August 17, 2008
Quick Summary: from Transforming Education, Aug. 15, 2008.

Teachers, start fighting back. Pass on this commentary.

A Family Again, if Only for a Week
By Michael Winerip
Publication Date: August 17, 2008
Quick Summary: This is heartbreaking.

A Teachable Moment
By Paul Tough
Publication Date: August 16, 2008
Quick Summary: from New York Times Magazine, Aug. 17, 2008

The Standardisto version of "a teachable moment" is agreeing to go to school 11 hours a day if you don't get your homework done on time. Read deep down into the article and you will find that these schools operate on a tightly managed curriculum. That and Teach for America. One can question how successful a good principal can be with a revolving door of green teachers. Of course, this is one reason they have a tightly scripted curriculum.

This said, I think New Orleans officials are right in not rebuilding the old system. All of us have to take responsibility for old systems that never worked. My great reservation on the model being built is that, with Control as its abiding philosophy, it relies solely on scripts and data.

Where Are They Now?
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: August 12, 2008
Quick Summary: Here's what happened to one teen who challenged the imperative to sit in silence while McDonald's corporation offered a program to a captive audience.

From Schoolhouse to Jailhouse: Doing Hard Time in Publici Schools
By Annette Fuentes
Publication Date: August 10, 2008
Quick Summary: The truth of the matter is that our system must leave plenty of students behind. We don't have living wage jobs for everybody.

This commentary is from The Black Commentator, April 8, 2004.

"Urban Pedagogies and the Celling of Adolescents of Color," by Garrett Duncan [in Social Justice: A Journal of Crime Conflict and Social Order, 2000], gives examples of how images of "dangerous youth" are used to justify incarceration. The essay centers on how the association between urban schools and prisons reflects the historical relationship between the white-controlled public education of subjugated U.S. populations and the economy. Specifically, under segregation, urban pedagogies work through students of color to make them less economically competitive and to prepare them to occupy and accept subordinate roles in the socioeconomic system.

Economic Free Fall
By William Greider
Publication Date: August 07, 2008
Quick Summary: from The Nation, Aug. 18, 2008

Read this important article in the context of what the corporate politicos--Republicans and Democrats--have done to attack, demean, and deprofessionalize teachers--in the name of accountability.

The Trolls Among Us
By Mattahias Schwartz
Publication Date: August 01, 2008
Quick Summary: from New York Times Sunday Magazine, Aug. 3, 2008.

While schools continue to operate in a Standardisto box ruled by McGraw-Hill and their kin, young people are involved in another universe.

Rosa Parks, Hail to Thee!
By Ralph Nader
Publication Date: July 30, 2008
Quick Summary: July 30, 2008
www.RalphNader.org


Where is the national organization urging teachers "Don't give the test."

How can we teach about Rosa Parks and other historical icons but steadfastly ignore the principles they espoused?

We need to break the bonds of teachers thinking something about NCLB will "just happen." No, it won't unless and until teachers make it happen.

Don't drink the tea.
Don't ride the bus.
Don't give the test.

Don't drink the tea
Don't ride the bus
Don't give the test

Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch Respond to AFT President Randi Weingarten
By Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn, and Radi Weingarten
Publication Date: July 25, 2008
Quick Summary: This exchange comes from THE EDUCATION GADFLY
A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Volume 8, Number 28. July 24, 2008

Teacher Voice in Today's Schools-Why Is It Critical?
By Editors of Democracy and Education
Publication Date: July 24, 2008
Quick Summary: Here is a chance for the teacher's voice to be heard.

AP Diary
By Christopher Phelps
Publication Date: July 11, 2008
Quick Summary: The true story of what it's like to spend a week grading Advanced Placement exams

From Chronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2008

16 Tons of Corporate School Bashing and No Teacher Protest
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: July 11, 2008
Quick Summary: Looking back at hopes to bring down NCLB.

Half-Hour Lunch
By Jo Scott-Coe
Publication Date: July 03, 2008
Quick Summary: In my middle school, lunch was 27 minutes, and the union lost the argument that this 27 minutes should NOT include "passing time," so, in reality, lunch was more like 22 minutes--if we were lucky and did not encounter--or acknowledge--any hallway difficulties during the race to lunch. Gulp.

But as this remarkable piece points out, the actual time for lunch is symptomatic of something much more crucial.

Wolin, Democracy, and The Math Wars
By By Michael Paul Goldenberg
Publication Date: June 27, 2008
Quick Summary: from The Pulse,, Education's Place for K12 Debate, June 21, 2008.
Important reading

Essential Rules for Writing
By Padgett Powell
Publication Date: June 18, 2008
Quick Summary: From The Believer, September 2006

From an interview with Padgett Powell by Brian J. Barr, music editor at the Seattle Weekly.

Rule 3 is particularly masterful.

A Perpetual Student Pursues Education to the Nth Degree
By Sara Lipka
Publication Date: June 08, 2008
Quick Summary: from Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3134n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Hallowell Connections
By Ned Hallowell
Publication Date: June 04, 2008
Quick Summary: http://www.drhallowell.com/#newletter

Be inspired by the commencement speech at Eagle Hill School, a school that describes itself on its website as a school for students with learning disabilities.

When Change Is Not Enough: The Seven Steps To Revolution
By Sara Robinson, with comment by Dave Stratman
Publication Date: May 28, 2008
Quick Summary: Dave Stratman, New Democracy.org, Comment:

The article rests largely on an artificial contrast between liberals and conservatives. It ignores the fact that the coprorate onslaught against working people of the last 35 years has been the joint effort of Dems and Reps: witness Clinton's sponsorship of NAFTA, his destruction of welfare, his repeal of the Glass-Steagel Act, his sponsorship of ferocious sanctions and war preparations against Iraq, of enhanced police powers, and the Dems continuing embrace of the "War on Terror," etc. Still it makes some valuable and intriguing points.

New Democracy has long argued that the ruling class is tactically strong but strategically weak. That is, the corporate and government assault on working people of these three decades has succeeded magnificently, showing that the capitalists have the power to slash wages, destroy pensions and health care, undermine education, and in every respect devastate people's sense of security and hopes for the future; in so doing, however, the corporate state has destroyed the historic basis of stability and cohesion in America: people's confidence in the future, their faith in the American Dream.

The capitalists have overwhelming power to brutalize and destroy, but they cannot and dare not build a future people want. To create that future will require a popular revolution that destroys the capitalist state and builds society anew on the basis of widely-shared, anti-capitalist values of solidarity, equality, and democracy.

Ohanian Comment: I hope you will think about the destruction of our public schools as you read Dave's comments and the commentary below. Stop blaming the conservatives. Recognize the corporate push. Realize that "corporate" influence goes a whole lot deeper than Harold McGraw's friendship with George Bush or how much money the testing industry makes. We could survive those two things. Whether we can survive the real corporate thrust depends on the willingness of teachers and parents to stand up and shout "No!" The silence of teachers and parents is killing us.

Read #5 Gutless Wonders in the Ruling Class with special attention. Make a list of the gutless wonders in education who have failed in their duty to lead.

Preparing Our Children for Success
By R. Z. Greenwald and RaisingSmallSouls.com
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
Quick Summary: It will do you good to watch this.

Commencement Address, Smith College, 2008
By Margaret Edson
Publication Date: May 25, 2008
Quick Summary:
Award-winning playwright Margaret Edson, a Smith College alumna who teaches kindergarten in the Atlanta public school system, was the speaker at Smith’s 130th commencement ceremony Sunday, May 18. This is a transcript; the speech was delivered without a written text.


May 18, 2008

Tracing the Roots of Kindergarten Readiness
By Peter Campbell and responders
Publication Date: May 22, 2008
Quick Summary:

The Riddle in the Front Row
By M. Garrett Bauman
Publication Date: May 22, 2008
Quick Summary: from Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2008

It is rare to witness a college professor writing about a student so powerfully.

Ending All Literary Crises
By Stephen Krashen
Publication Date: May 15, 2008
Quick Summary: from Language [pdf file], May 2008

Stephen Krashen presents some very good news about children’s literature, some very bad news about access to books, and a solution to end all literacy crises.

A Surgeon’s Path From Migrant Fields to Operating Room
By Claudia Dreifus
Publication Date: May 14, 2008
Quick Summary: A Conversation With Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa from the New York Times, May 13, 2008.

Twenty years ago, Dr. Quiñones-Hinojosa, now 40, was an illegal immigrant working in the vegetable fields of the Central Valley in California. Learn why he thinks his courses at Harvard Medical School weren't all that tough.

Why I took a stand against WASL and why the state should abandon it
By Carl Chew
Publication Date: May 08, 2008
Quick Summary: from the Seattle Times, May 8, 2008.

A remarkable teacher explains his so-called insubordination as "a small act of peaceful civil disobedience," voicing his concern that "so many have forgotten that in this country our moral duty is to act when we see wrongdoing."

Advancing Beyond AP Courses
By Bruce G. Hammond
Publication Date: May 06, 2008
Quick Summary: from Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2, 2008

The author observes that Without the required curricula and tests, students and teachers could rediscover their passion and creativity.

Words That Destroy Your Child's Future--And My Profession
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: May 02, 2008
Quick Summary:

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree
By Marty Nemko
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Quick Summary: From Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2, 2008

Carl Chew Chimes In
By Carl Chew
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
Quick Summary:

Fighting for Recess: One Parent's Story
By Marie Walton
Publication Date: April 24, 2008
Quick Summary: "Thank you, Mrs. Walton for getting us recess," summarizes the story of one parent's determination.

Another parent summarized the problem with this statement: "I think prisoners basically have a little bit more social interaction than our children."

Crossing the Rubricon
By Carolyn Foster Segal
Publication Date: April 22, 2008
Quick Summary: Using a rubric, the author provides a final assessment report of Emily Dickinson.

from Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2008

Conclusion: "It all comes down to just two categories: great and sh____." It's actually a very handy rubric.

Bitter? You Should Be!
By Nicholas Von Hoffman
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
Quick Summary: from The Nation, April 17, 2008.

Those who aren't bitter and/or angry at this point are simply not paying attention.

Students Organizing Themselves??
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: April 09, 2008
Quick Summary: Here is a Q & A from my website.

Keeping Priorities Straight, Even at the End
By Tara Parker-Pope
Publication Date: April 09, 2008
Quick Summary: from The New York Times, April 8, 2008.
This one is a must-read. And follow the hot link. Take the time to listen to Randy Pausch's most remarkable lecture. You will be glad you did.

A Nation at Risk Twenty-five Years Later
By Richard Rothstein
Publication Date: April 07, 2008
Quick Summary: from Unbound, Cato Institute

April 7, 2008

NOTE: The article contains graphs, which are viewable at the Cato site.

Ohanian Note: Rothstein offers a good analysis. . . with one exception. I dispute that Nation at Risk was "well-intentioned." People say the same thing about NCLB. Baloney. Read Why Corporate America Is Bashing Our Public Schools?

High Standards
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: April 06, 2008
Quick Summary: This chapter appears in Knowledge & Power in the Global Economy: The Effects of School Reform in a Neoliberal/Neoconservative Age, Second Edition, ed. David Gabbard (Lawrence Erlbaum 2008).

Book Review: Testing: The Real Crisis in Education
By FairTest
Publication Date: April 03, 2008
Quick Summary: from The Examiner, April 2008

Quality-Managing the Country
By Marc Bosquet
Publication Date: March 31, 2008
Quick Summary: from Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 2008.

Think about what Quality Management has meant in the classroom: DIBELS in kindergarten and absence of novels in middle school.

Church of Scientology and Public Education
By Pamela Lichtenwalner
Publication Date: March 27, 2008
Quick Summary: This commentary shows, among other things, the connection between Scientology and NCLB.

My 'Little Professor'
By M. Patterson
Publication Date: March 24, 2008
Quick Summary: from The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 29, 2008.

Ohanian Comment: I admit to awe and applause at this second grader speaking in the voice of the turkey. But I understand a smidgen of the agony that travels along with this precocity.

The Schools To War Collision: Whither the Resistance?
By Rich Gibson and E. Wayne Ross
Publication Date: March 22, 2008
Quick Summary: from Counterpunch, March 2008

Our task is to connect reason to passion, passion to power, and power to a critique of what is, what we are doing, and what can be.

Schools must produce contributors
By Lynn Stoddard
Publication Date: March 21, 2008
Quick Summary: Standard-Examiner, March 14, 2008

Lynn Stoddard asks a crucial question. Ask parents what their priorities are for their children.

A Boy Named Sue, and a Theory of Names
By J. Marion Tierney
Publication Date: March 11, 2008
Quick Summary: from New York Times, March 11, 2008

Ohanian NOTE: I looked up the American Name Society and became so interested in the article titles of their journal, that I joined.

Numbers Guy: Are our brains wired for math?
By Jim Holt
Publication Date: March 08, 2008
Quick Summary: from The New Yorker, March 3, 2008

According to Stanislas Dehaene, humans have an inbuilt "number sense" capable of some basic calculations and estimates. The problems start when we learn mathematics and have to perform procedures that are anything but instinctive. But here is a quarrel with Holt:

Dear New Yorker Editor:


Jim Holt, writing about Stanislaus Dehaene's research on neurobiology and arithmetic, tells us about findings which are new and tantalizing ("Numbers Guy," March 3rd.) But one might expect a writer on research to have done some research himself. As a longtime curriculum developer in school math and researcher in the learning of mathematics I can say without hesitation that Holt's claim that the "new math" was grounded in the theories of Jean Piaget is utterly false. "New math" or "modern math" as known in the USA amounted to the imposition on children of mathematics as known by university mathematicians, most of whom would not have heard of Piaget — most certainly not in the nineteen-fifties, a time in which Holt claims Piaget's views were "standard." At that time, Piaget's research was virtually unknown in the United States.

Second, the notion that "reform math" calls for children to discover things their own way gives the impression that they wander aimlessly and randomly through math. A substantial body of research shows that this is fundamentally wrong. The one thing that we humans do is to make sense of things; what "reform math" curricula do is to challenge pupils to make sense of math, usually in the face of thoughtfully constructed problem situations. This is not chaotic or chance discovery. Rather it provokes adaptation involving the evolution of children's networks of ideas in terms of complexity, stability, economy and generalizability (and, not the least, the quest to go further in their investigations).

Holt's slippery characterization of reform math could support the authoritarian approach to the teaching of mathematics so common these days, a policy virtually identical to "modern math" with the widespread message to children, "You're incompetent. You are capable only of following orders."

Third, one should keep in mind that there is an enormous gap between research showing that the notion of subtraction, for example (not to say anything about a wide range of more complex mathematical thinking), resides in these or those neural folds and evidence for the success of educational methods/school curricula which enable children to subtract.

Thomas C. O'Brien
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Senior Research Fellow in Science

All Our Students Thinking
By Nel Noddings
Publication Date: February 21, 2008
Quick Summary: from Educational Leadership February 2008

Nel Noddings makes a convincing case for educating students for the real world, and this means acknowledging that not everybody will go to college.

Cover the Material—Or Teach Students to Think?
By Marion Brady
Publication Date: February 21, 2008
Quick Summary: Kudos to Marion Brady, a leader in the call for real curriculum reform. Brady asserts that to move beyond rote memorization and use a full range of thinking skills, students need to tackle issues straight out of the complex world in which they live. This article should be in every faculty room.

From Educational Leadership February 2008

Teaching for the Test
By Emmet Rosenfeld
Publication Date: February 17, 2008
Quick Summary: Washington Post
Feb. 17, 2008

How hard could it be for a top teacher at an elite high school to win the coveted National Board certification? You'd be surprised. He sure was. You may not be so surprised to see how biased National Board scoring is. Emmet's conclusion shows his real teacherliness: on a more fundamental level, I wonder if I really want to be a member of a club that doesn't get the canoe. For all their rigor, the National Board certification seems to flunk on the essence of teaching.

The Reality of Art
By Michael Martin
Publication Date: February 13, 2008
Quick Summary: Michael Martin asks, Suppose we stopped teaching math and science and schools only taught singing and dancing and painting and photography and acting and music. How impoverished would we be?

Of Snips and Snails and Snowplows
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: January 31, 2008
Quick Summary: A New York City snowplow driver knows what's developmentally appropriate for little boys.

The U.S. Psycho-Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex
By Bruce E. Levine
Publication Date: January 31, 2008
Quick Summary: from Z Magazine, November 2007.

Levine observes that As mental illness has become profitable, we are seeing more of it

Reading Emerson
By William A. Proefriedt
Publication Date: January 27, 2008
Quick Summary: from Education Week, Oct. 29, 2003. Posted with permission of the author.

The author asks us to look to Emerson in our current NCLB woes because Emerson He offers an idiom that allows us to grasp our educational problems by the right handle.

The Colorado Coalition for Better Education: An Interview with Don Perl—Teacher, Advocate, & Activist for Better Education
By Yvonne Siu-Runyan and Don Perl
Publication Date: January 25, 2008
Quick Summary: Here is the inspirational story of an education activist whose spirit and work influences many people.
-Jan. 25, 2008

Who Made Education Week the Gradebook of the Universe?
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: January 24, 2008
Quick Summary: Quality Counts, the annual report from Education Week, rears its ugly head once again.

Musings on the Latest Crisis
By Gerald Bracey
Publication Date: January 25, 2008
Quick Summary: Gerald Bracey urges teachers to stop accepting the blame and to take the initiative.
Jaunuary 23, 2008

Iraq Policy/NCLB Policy, With Liberty and Justice for the Privileged Few, Part 2
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: January 16, 2008
Quick Summary: This is Part 2 of a document designed to help us think about the devastation our government has brought to people in a distant country and to children and teachers in our own. here.

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
By Carol S. Dweck
Publication Date: January 14, 2008
Quick Summary: from Scientific American, Nov. 28, 2007

Hint: Don't tell your kids that they are smart. More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life

Iraq Policy/NCLB Policy, With Liberty and Justice for the Privileged Few
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: January 02, 2008
Quick Summary: This is the opening part of a lengthy document designed to help us think about the devastation our government has brought to people in a distant country and to children and teachers in our own.

Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.
Publication Date: December 30, 2007
Quick Summary: I found this on Richard Lakin's website, a place worth visiting. His book Teaching as an Act of Love is available from Amazon.com.

Twilight of the Books
By Caleb Crain
Publication Date: December 28, 2007
Quick Summary: from The New Yorker, Dec. 24, 2007

Words and Phrases About School You will Hear Coming Out of the Mouths of Those Who Would Be President
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: December 23, 2007
Quick Summary: Think about what the politicos are saying AND what they are not saying.

Harmony Through Diversity
By Dr. Tom Keating
Publication Date: December 15, 2007
Quick Summary: This article is from School Planning and Management Magazine, November 2007.

During visits to other countries and through his role with an international organization, this nationally known crusader for better restroom care confirms his expectations that some problems are not unique to U.S. schools.

The Case Against Standardized Testing
By Peter Henry
Publication Date: December 12, 2007
Quick Summary: Peter's article was named "best submission" in the Minnesota English Journal. It delivers on its title. Site space limitations cut off the notes at the end. They can be accessed using the hot link above.

Math Considerations
By Norm Matloff
Publication Date: December 11, 2007
Quick Summary: Norm's remarks were posted on EDDRA, Dec. 11, 2007. He gave me permission to post them here. They are certainly worth reading.

The Most Effective Learning Tool
By Peter Campbell
Publication Date: December 09, 2007
Quick Summary: We are robbing young children of important developmental skills in order to stuff so-called reading skills into them.

Dec. 8, 2007

Gaps
By Philip Kovacs, Educator Roundtable
Publication Date: November 20, 2007
Quick Summary: Join the conversation on this important subject. Educator Roundtable has provided a place where you can put in your two cents worth on education issues you care about. Come take a look.

Triumph of the Wills
By Daniel Brook, with comment by Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: November 19, 2007
Quick Summary: Article from The Nation, Dec. 3, 2007.

Ohanian Comment: As you read about the average American mill worker in the 1920s tending more than 700 spindles per hour, while the average Indian worker was tending just 118, think of today's teachers under the thumb of corporate-politico rules demanding passive obedience, allowing no say in job conditions and materials, and offering pay bonuses based on criteria that harm children.

Another parallel comes to mind: As the reviewer points out, under medieval Catholicism, ordinary people were forbidden to read the bible on their own. Today NCLB's Reading First denies teachers the right to choose books suited for their students needs and demands a rigid, time-dominated , scripted delivery of commercial product. What teachers--and the children in their care--desperately need is a Martin Luther nailing a proclamation on the politicos' doors. Luther had 95 theses. Educator Roundtable offers just 16 reasons for saying NO to NCLB.

With this continued silence, teaching is no longer a profession. Soon it will be piecework.

Good Things Never Die
By Joseph Lucido, 5th Grade Teacher
Publication Date: November 15, 2007
Quick Summary: In addition to being a fifth grade teacher and a father, Joseph associates himself with
Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse and
Educator Roundtable

Election '08 Meets The Great Education Myth
By David Sirota
Publication Date: November 15, 2007
Quick Summary:
This must read is from:
Campaign for America's Future

Please send it to your friends who support Hillary or Obama.

New York and Chicago: Same Script
By Jim Horn and George Schmidt
Publication Date: November 13, 2007
Quick Summary: Whether it's New York or Chicago, the charterizing brigade is in full force, financed by Broad, Gates, and Walton and aided by the AFT. Jim Horn and George Schmidt document what's happening. Your city may be next.

Do We Need National Standards with Teeth?
By Zalman Usiskin
Publication Date: November 09, 2007
Quick Summary: Educational Leadership
November 2007
pages 38-42

Kudos to Zalman Usiskin for pointing out that national standards with teeth might exacerbate rather than solve the problem. Haven't we learned anything from NCLB?

Promises Worth Keeping
By Doug Christensen, Nebraska Commissioner of Education
Publication Date: November 06, 2007
Quick Summary: Opening Speech at the Leadership for Classroom Assessment conference, October 17th. It was a conference about Leadership in Classroom Assessment. . . a day and a half about the promise and practice of classroom-based assessment.

Doug Christensen's passion will take your breath away.

American Business Hasn’t A Clue
By Roger Schank
Publication Date: November 01, 2007
Quick Summary: This is from The Pulse: Education's Place for Debate, Nov. 1, 2007.

Kudos. Stop the math and science fixation.

A Graduation Test: The Wrong Cure for Pennsylvania's Education Problems
By Monty Neill, Ed.D., Co-Executive Director, FairTest
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Quick Summary: Monty Neill gave this talk to an emerging alliance of education, civil rights, community, parent, disability organizations that have come together to oppose a proposal that students who do not pass a state test cannot get a diploma. We can all learn from it.

The Uncanny Symphony of Oliver Sacks
By Leonard Cassuto
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Quick Summary: This review is from Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 2, 2007. In Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Oliver Sacks, quirky as ever, again shows the reader unexpected human complexity and mystery, connecting this to how we perceive "the disabled" in our current world. We need to read all we can about the richness of human possibility. . . and the weirdness.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at No Child Left Behind
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: October 10, 2007
Quick Summary: Apologies to Wallace Stevens who must be rolling in his grave.

Going Beyond Jonathan Kozol's Manifesto: How Can We Overcome the Weapons of Mass Destruction
By by Rich Gibson, emeritus professor, San Diego State University
Publication Date: October 09, 2007
Quick Summary: I posted this essay once before. I urge you to read it again.

Schools as Scapegoats
By Lawrence Mishel and Richard Rothstein
Publication Date: October 01, 2007
Quick Summary:
This article is from American Prospect, Sept. 24, 2007. You need to be a paid subscriber to access it.

National Educational Assessment Rubbish
By Walt Thiessen
Publication Date: September 30, 2007
Quick Summary:
The U.S. Department of Education is all aglow because 4th and 8th grade Math scores are two points higher than they were two years ago. They don't even want to consider the idea that intensive testing only proves that kids are learning to study for the tests, at the expense of their real educations.

This is from Nolan Chart, Sept. 26, 2007.

Next year in the garden: Famous Last Words
By Stephen Morris
Publication Date: September 09, 2007
Quick Summary: This essay about gardening contains more good advice for teachers than anything offered by the U. S. Department of Education or, for that matter, many in-service training sessions inflicted on teachers.

Back to School
By Sam Smith
Publication Date: September 05, 2007
Quick Summary: Sam Smith edits Undernews, an e-mail service sending out provocative news items on all sorts of topics. Sometimes, readers get the treat of an essay by Sam. This one has a number of gems. Imagine: a journalist who respected teachers and who was willing and able to learn from young children.

Smith's website is Progressive Review: An Online Journal & Archive of Alternative News & Information. ( http://www.prorev.com)

Questions and Answers About What is to Be Done Within the Testing and School Reform Movement
By Rich Gibson
Publication Date: September 04, 2007
Quick Summary: This dissection of NCLB comes from Substance News, February 2007.

Humanity
By Kip Zegers
Publication Date: August 29, 2007
Quick Summary: Kip Zegers says, "I'm readying to return for my 24th year at Hunter College H.S. in New York City. I'm a
poet, have 7 small press books, and here's my
back to school poem, which I thought might give support to fellow workers.

The Unknown Teacher
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: August 29, 2007
Quick Summary: An update on an old poem, with apologies to W. H. Auden.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
By Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste
Publication Date: August 28, 2007
Quick Summary: Recent flurry over schools paying students to achieve led me back to Edward Deci's work. Below is a brief excerpt from Why We Do What We Do: The Dynamics of Personal Autonomy, Putnam 1995.

Unplugged Schools
By Lowell Monke
Publication Date: August 23, 2007
Quick Summary: from Orion
September/October 2007

Education can ameliorate, or exacerbate, society's ills. Which will it be?

If I Were the Goddess of Education in the World…
By Cindy Lutenbacher
Publication Date: August 08, 2007
Quick Summary: Cindy and I invite your additions.

Three Things a School Needs
By Donna Metler
Publication Date: July 30, 2007
Quick Summary: A Memphis mom has come up with a simple test for any future school she's willing to let her young daughter attend.

Steve Orel: Don't Stand by my grave and weep. . . .
By The family and friends of Steve Orel
Publication Date: July 13, 2007
Quick Summary: Keep the legacy alive. Send a memorial gift to the WOO.

The Gregarious Brain
By David Dobbs
Publication Date: July 04, 2007
Quick Summary: From the New York Times Magazine
July 8, 2007

Distorted Statistics on Graduation Rates
By Paul Attewell and David E. Lavin
Publication Date: July 03, 2007
Quick Summary: The methods now used to determine college-completion rates produce a warped and outdated picture of how today's students experience and benefit from higher education.

from The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 6, 2007

Why a Student and Parent Testing Protection Act?
There is a need to protect students, families and communities from abusive assessment practices that violate due process, civil rights and liberties.
By Harold Berlak
Publication Date: June 29, 2007
Quick Summary: June 2007

This Protection Act clearly states the problems and the needed protections to prevent further child abuse by misuse of standardized testing.

When States Seize Schools: A Cautionary Tale
By Walt Gardner
Publication Date: June 24, 2007
Quick Summary: from Education Week
June 13, 2007

Substituting one level of government for another has done little to improve educational quality. The state possesses no more inherent wisdom than local communities.

Anti-capitalism in five minutes or
By Robert Jensen
Publication Date: June 23, 2007
Quick Summary: from ZNet Commentaries
May 15, 2007

[Remarks to the final "Last Sunday" community gathering in Austin, TX, April 29, 2007. For a PDF of all five of the talks in this series, write to rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .]

Why is it that we must choose an economic system that undermines the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the most inhuman? Robert Jensen provides answers.

Frederick Taylor and Science of Education
By Dr. Alan A. Block
Publication Date: June 21, 2007
Quick Summary:
June 20, 2007

This prescient comment was written in response to an ongoing discussion about Taylorism on Gerald Bracey's EDDRA discussion list. It is certainly worth noting that so-called models of good teaching never seem to take into account the nose-scratching idiosyncratic rituals of good teachers. . . but claim to rely instead on science.

Dr. Alan A. Block
Professor of Education
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Menomonie, Wisconsin 54751

Editor-in-Chief, Journal of The American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies

http://ariseandgonow.blogspot.com

The Body Electric
from Salon.com, June 19, 2007
By Ann Bauer
Publication Date: June 19, 2007
Quick Summary: Our son's condition kept getting worse, and everything we tried to help him failed. Then we discovered there was one final option: Electroshock therapy.

Education: the learning of skills we will never need?
By Teacherken
Publication Date: June 17, 2007
Quick Summary:
Picking up on a discussion on Gerald Bracey's, EDDRA discussion list of whether or not studying calculus in high school is useless, Kenneth Bernstein's comments on Dailykos have elicited lots of responses, many of them interesting. Ken's article is posted here. Go to the url for the reader responses.

June 16, 2007

Who Give's a Rat's Patootie About High School Calculus?
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: June 13, 2007
Quick Summary: Susan, Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk, and George Schmidt, editor of Substance, weigh in on calculus.

June 13, 2007

A Transformational Model of Public Education
(To Counter the Counterfeit No Child Left Behind Law)
By Lynn Stoddard
Publication Date: June 11, 2007
Quick Summary: Lynn Stoddard offers a plan to help schools become accountable for skills communities value, skills that will truly help students grow as contributors to society. And he has a tool for assessing school effectiveness in reaching this goal, a great counter to what the federal government is piling on us in NCLB. Which is of more value to the parent of a second grader: his child's DIBELS score or whether the child is learning to ask good questions and developing the ability to work independently?

A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
No Child Left Behind and the growing divide in how educational equity is understood
By James Crawford
Publication Date: June 07, 2007
Quick Summary: This important article is from Education Week, June 6, 2007. Among other things, James Crawford shows that words matter and the shift in terminology fostered by politicos hurts the very children NCLB purports to help. The inescapable conclusion is that, despite its stated goals, the No Child Left Behind law represents a diminished vision of civil rights.

When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?
By Elizabeth Weil
Publication Date: May 30, 2007
Quick Summary: from New York Times Magazine, June 3, 2007.

Increasing the average age of the children in a kindergarten class is a cheap and easy way to get a small bump in test scores, because older children perform better, and states’ desires for relative advantage is written into their policy briefs.

If we raised kindergarten starting age to 12, maybe all the kids would be able to read by first grade. And then we would get a bigger bump in test scores.

The Specter Haunting Your Office
By James Lardner
Publication Date: May 29, 2007
Quick Summary: from The New York Review of Books
June 14, 2007

THE FUGEES: Adjusting to America; Outcasts United
By Warren St. John
Publication Date: May 21, 2007
Quick Summary: This article is from the New York Times, January 21, 2007. It shows the best and worst of people.

HOW DATA WILL SAVE US
By Jo Scott-Coe
Publication Date: May 18, 2007
Quick Summary: This is from Swink Magazine.

Don’t say data equals children. Equals learning. Say something gentler. Say No Child Left Behind.

The Graduates
By Louis Menands
Publication Date: May 16, 2007
Quick Summary: from The New Yorker
May 21, 2007
Ohanian Comment:
I'm not sure I get the tuna-fish-salad metaphor here but found this worth reading anyway. I majored in English and got an MA in medieval lit. What could be more useless in terms of finding "a slot?"

By the way, I'm all for grade inflation.

Evil Empire: Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America
By Chalmers Johnson
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
Quick Summary: This article is about the horrendous war in Iraq, but initially one can't help but be struck by the parallels with the federal government's war on public schools which travels under the name of NCLB.

This article cuts deeply, getting at fundamentals. As Johnson observes: But the war itself is the outcome of an imperial presidency and the abject failure of Congress to perform its Constitutional duty of oversight. And then, of course, there's the failure of the press. Had the government been working as the authors of the Constitution intended, the war could not have occurred. This is a tough read--and a necessary one.

Go to the article at Information Clearinghouse for many links to more information.

Chess Champion Offers Success Strategies for Life
By Josh Waitzkin
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
Quick Summary: Remember "Searching for Bobby Fisher?" Why Josh Waitzkin, the chess phenomenon, grew up to be a man who no longer plays chess should be of interest to teachers and to parents. Here, he reflects on the learning process that applies equally well to business, athletics, and to life.
I think in the learning process it’s really valuable for people to go very, very deeply into one thing at one point in their lives and touch quality. And then they can, like you’ve described, translate that quality into other things, because I believe these principles are the same. They transcend specific disciplines.


Talk of the Nation
May 14, 2007)

What's Wrong with Doctors
By Richard Horton
Publication Date: May 14, 2007
Quick Summary: As you read this brilliant essay, think about the parallels with teaching. After all, we teachers are continuously enjoined to adopt a medical model in our work. As Richard Horton observes, "On average, about 15 percent of a doctor's diagnoses are inaccurate." Nonetheless, unlike teachers, doctors are revered rather than belittled and scapegoated. Except when a surgeon cuts out the wrong kidney or some such travesty, doctor shortcomings get no headlines. Sensationalism aside, Horton's more important point is that "There is a rich and rather disturbing variety of human weaknesses to consider when watching a doctor at the patient's bedside." It is these human weaknesses that offer provoking contrasts with good teaching.

As teachers administer the omnipresent DIBELS, for example, they might think about this declaration: "The emotional temperature of the doctor plays a substantial part in diagnostic failure and success."

The doctor whose book is being reviewed advocates that his fellow physicians seek a new ally in helping to correct their own cognitive limitations. Teachers should take to heart who this ally is.

from The New York Review of Books
May 31, 2007

Little income makes big difference in schools
By Leah C. Wells
Publication Date: May 09, 2007
Quick Summary: When low-income kids get the assistance they need to reach school ready to learn, and when children from low-income and middle-income families go to school together, all students' performance is enhanced.

Review: Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: July 10, 2008
Quick Summary: Book Review: Nichols, Sharon L. & Berliner, David C. (2007). Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America�??s Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Pp. 250 $25 ISBN-13: 978-1-891792-35-9

Education Review

Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard
Michael Winerip
By
Publication Date: May 04, 2007
Quick Summary: How does one summarize what Michael Winerip does, other than to say he provides a context for thinking about issues that matter.

A Call for Slow Schools: Rethinking Education in the Green Mountains
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: May 11, 2007
Quick Summary: This call to Vermonters to take back their schools appeared in Vermont Commons, April 4, 2007.

Concerned citizens in every state should take a look at what the Feds are doing to their schools and join the fight to end NCLB. Childhood is at stake, and so is teacher professionalism.

America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters
By Chip Ward
Publication Date: April 27, 2007
Quick Summary: from AlterNet, April 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/50023

There are at least 200,000 people across the nation living more or less permanently on the street, enough to fill a thousand public libraries every day. . . . Most of them are mentally ill.

America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters
By Chip Ward
Publication Date: April 02, 2007
Quick Summary: from AlterNet, April 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/50023

There are at least 200,000 people across the nation living more or less permanently on the street, enough to fill a thousand public libraries every day. . . . Most of them are mentally ill.

Brain Trust: Dr. Groopman On 'How Doctors Think'
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Dr. Jerome Groopman
Publication Date: March 31, 2007
Quick Summary: Ohanian Comment: Because teachers are so inflicted by exhortations to be "more scientific," to "be more like doctors," it is always illustrative to look at how doctors work. It is of particular value when a doctor admits to error. I read Dr. Groopman's new book on a recent long plane ride (but I don't blame him for arriving home sicker than the proverbial dog). Groopman has provocative and disturbing things to say about how doctors think. For starters, But today's rigid reliance on evidence-based medicine risks having the doctor choose care passively, solely by the numbers. Statistics cannot substitute for the human being before you; statistics embody average, not individuals. This is just for starters.

Educating for Human Greatness:
By Lynn Stoddard
Publication Date: March 29, 2007
Quick Summary: (Editor�?s Note: For several years the Sutherland Institute has articulated the need for systemic reforms in Utah�??s public education system. The following short essay by long-time Utah public school teacher and administrator, Lynn Stoddard, is one example of a systemic reform we can embrace. It addresses the purpose of public education and concludes that public education should focus on serving children and society �? that as we constructively assist the one, we constructively build the future of the other. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, �?standardization
�? is a pedagogical evil and relic of an inhumane factory system for teaching children. The federal No Child Left Behind Act only exacerbates this fundamental error. This essay is right on target if we truly care about the future of our children and one public institution we have entrusted to their care. Inasmuch as the essay sets forth a framework for substantive changes to our public education system, we urge readers to copy and use it for discussion.)

This essay is from The Sutherland Institute

Dinosaur Scientist to Lecture, Inspired 'Jurassic Park' Character
By Mary Challender, Register Staff Writer, Des Moines Register, 3/28/07
Publication Date: March 28, 2007
Quick Summary:

Kay's Comment: I love success stories like this one! Bad grades in high school. Failed out of college seven times. Only college degrees are honorary. Inspite of having dyslexia, this dinosaur genius is now a respected scientist. John "Jack" Horner says: "For kids with dyslexia, inoculated in failure, Horner hopes his life is evidence to the contrary. Success, he said, has nothing to do with grades. The interest and the love of a field are what's important."

How the governor can advance 'career tech'
By Mike Rose
Publication Date: March 27, 2007
Quick Summary: from San Francisco Chronicle
March 26, 2007

Anyone who has read Mike Rose's powerful books knows that he speaks from experience about vocational ed.

By Mark Fisher, with comments from Annie
Publication Date: March 22, 2007
Quick Summary: Mark Fisher writes: No Child Left Behind is built on a mirage. At some point that's always just over the horizon, the law assumes, all children in the nation will miraculously read and compute at grade level, simply because they have been tested and tested and tested again.

By Mark Fisher, with comments from Annie
Publication Date: March 22, 2007
Quick Summary: Mark Fisher writes: No Child Left Behind is built on a mirage. At some point that's always just over the horizon, the law assumes, all children in the nation will miraculously read and compute at grade level, simply because they have been tested and tested and tested again.

By Mark Fisher, with comments from Annie
Publication Date: March 22, 2007
Quick Summary: Mark Fisher writes: No Child Left Behind is built on a mirage. At some point that's always just over the horizon, the law assumes, all children in the nation will miraculously read and compute at grade level, simply because they have been tested and tested and tested again.

Proposed Academy Would Serve ADHD Kids [MN]
First-of-its-kind Charter School Seeks State Approval
By Kay Jones, Educator, k4teens.info
Publication Date: March 16, 2007
Quick Summary: Sad, but true: the needs of some special students cannot be met in the mianstream public schools and some charter schools might meet their needs better.

High Stakes Tests: A Harsh Agenda for America's Children
By Paul Wellstone
Publication Date: March 15, 2007
Quick Summary: It is past time to revisit Senator Paul Wellstone's speech at Teachers College, Columbia University, March 31, 2000. Tragically, Senator Wellsone died in a plane crash Oct. 25, 2002, and our schools are far worse because of his loss. Paul Wellstone was willing to fight for what is right.

Read the bill on testing proposed by Paul Wellstone.

The Overscheduled Child?
By The Chronicle Review
Publication Date: March 14, 2007
Quick Summary: This is from The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 16, 20007.

High-Stakes Testing is Putting the Nation At Risk
By David C. Berliner & Sharon L. Nichols
Publication Date: March 12, 2007
Quick Summary: This article appeared in Education Week, March 12, 2007.

Why Can't We Talk about Peace in Public?
By Matt Taibbi
Publication Date: March 01, 2007
Quick Summary: WARNING: This contains offensive language and even more offensive "ideas."

For anyone interested in the parallels of government strategy and operations in Iraq and NCLB, surely the reactions of the fighting forces is telling.

Travels to a Distant World
By Norm Scott
Publication Date: February 23, 2007
Quick Summary: Footnote:

�??No Child Left Behind�??: The Song
U. S. Department of Education
by Christopher Cerf and Sarah Bruce Durkee

We�??re here to thank our president,
For signing this great bill,
That�??s right! Yeah,
Research shows we know the way,
It�??s time we showed the will!

Worst Place to Be a Kid
By Gerald Bracey
Publication Date: February 22, 2007
Quick Summary: The story has played big in Brunei, Georgia, Thailand, & Seychelles. It is not about bashing public schools so it has not played in New York or Washington.

No Child Left Behind as an Anti-Poverty Measure
By Jean Anyon & Kiersten Greene
Publication Date: February 18, 2007
Quick Summary: This article appears in Teacher Education Quarterly, Spring 2007.

Here is the dirty little secret: for better scores on achievement tests and increased education to secure better jobs for low-income folks, there have to be better jobs available.

This article is must reading. It takes the NCLB argument where it should have been all along.

Doubt
By Kay Ryan
Publication Date: January 27, 2007
Quick Summary: This is from Elephant Rocks, poems by Kay Ryan, Grove Press 1996.

As a former teacher of third grade chicks, I found the first line haunting. I think the rest is directed at teachers, who MUST remain steadfast to their vision of what teaching is supposed to be.

And then the poem gets very personal me. As I shut down my computer around midnight, I always tell myself, "Tomorrow, I WILL work on my book." But the next morning I always take a peak at my e-mail--and there's always something from Porlock. Coleridge claimed he had perceived the whole of Kubla Khan in a dream, but as he was writing it down, someone from Porlock interrupted him. . . and he never finished the poem.

Goodbye teachers
Hello to the Brave New World of NCLB
By Anne E. Levin Garrison
Publication Date: January 26, 2007
Quick Summary: The recent decision of a Maryland superintendent of schools is a clear illustration of the destructive nature of NCLB policy.

Charles Murray and the Wall Street Journal: A Muddled Look at Education in the U. S.
By Michael T. Martin
Publication Date: January 25, 2007
Quick Summary: NOTE: This essay expresses Michael Martin?s views
alone, and not those of the organization that employs him. The essay appeared on Gerald Bracey's discussion list Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency (EDDRA).

The Importance of Play
By Dan Laitsch
Publication Date: January 24, 2007
Quick Summary:
January 22, 2007 | Volume 5 | Number 1
Research Brief
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

by Dan Laitsch

The Question: How important are play, unstructured time, and recess in the social and academic development of children?

The Low Road
By Marge Piercy
Publication Date: January 24, 2007
Quick Summary: This poem speaks so strongly for the need to find an ally--one person who stands with you. And then find another one. And another.

Pretty soon you'll join Educator Roundtable, sign the petition, speak out, send in a donation. Next comes workbook refusal. And then. . . we take on the tests. Yes, it starts when you say We.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

Reform Trumps Race
By David Nicholson
Publication Date: January 23, 2007
Quick Summary:
Book Review: The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial, by Susan Eaton (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), Publication Date: January 23, 2007

The book offers a reminder that people, unlike rats, will continue down the same tunnels long after it's apparent there is no cheese. This is, I know, harsh, but it seems an apt characterization of superintendents, principals, and educational consultants who keep devising solutions that are only variations of old ways of failing.

This review first appeared at Education Sector.

Sister leaves behind a lifetime's worth of lessons
By Jerry McGovern
Publication Date: January 18, 2007
Quick Summary: from the Press-Republican, Jan. 14, 2007.

This lovely tribute reminds us where kids learn the lessons that count.

Aztecs vs. Greeks
Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise.
By Charles Murray
Publication Date: January 18, 2007
Quick Summary: Appearing on January 18, 2007, this is the third of three articles on the topic of IQ appearing in The Wall Street Journal.

A Declaration of Independence and a Bill of Rights for American Education
By Jeffrey L. Peyton
Publication Date: January 17, 2007
Quick Summary: Go to Jeff's website at http://www.puppetools.com

Join the Forum and you can discuss this.

What's Wrong With Vocational School?
Too many Americans are going to college
By Charles Murray
Publication Date: January 17, 2007
Quick Summary: This appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 2007.

The New, Improved Educational Machine
(But Where Are the Children?)
By Peter W. Cookson Jr.
Publication Date: January 16, 2007
Quick Summary: This essay appeared in Education Week, Dec. 16, 2006.

Intelligence in the Classroom
Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.
By Charles Murray
Publication Date: January 16, 2007
Quick Summary: This appeared in The Wall Street Journal January 16, 2007

School Daze
By Anne E. Levin Garrison
Publication Date: January 12, 2007
Quick Summary: The policies of NCLB are leading our schools away from an appreciation and understanding of the individual; that works well for no child.

The Crisis in Urban Education: Resisting Neoliberal Policies and Forging Democratic Possibilities
By David Hursh
Publication Date: January 11, 2007
Quick Summary: Educational Researcher, May, 2006

Review:

High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform. Pauline Lipman. New York: Routledge, 2003. 224 pp., $25.95 (paper). ISBN 0415935083.

Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and a New Social Movement. Jean Anyon. New York: Routledge, 2005. 240 pp., $22.95 (paper). ISBN 0415950996.

Here is a provocative review of two books, providing a beginning for the analysis required to reverse the tide of neoliberal policies and to develop a new social movement.

Happiness 101
By D.T. Max
Publication Date: January 07, 2007
Quick Summary: Read about the distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure ? they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill ? and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness. Read far enough, and you might, like me almost fall out of your chair. Guess what charter group is interested in applying positive psychology? One can hope they will start with their own behavior toward children.

Everything I Know About NCLB I Learned from Primetime Live
By Gary Stager
Publication Date: January 05, 2007
Quick Summary: Gary Stager brings us a shocking update on the infamous Milgram experiment and this one relates directly to test prep and teachers' willingness to participate in practices that harm children. There is no getting around it: Many people are participating directly. Many others are pretending not to notice that harm is being done.

Here, you'll find links to the illustrations in the notes at the end. At The Pulse they appear right in the essay.

January 4, 2007

An Inconvenient Truth:
By Gary Stager
Publication Date: January 03, 2007
Quick Summary:
District Administration
January 2007

This is an important notion: Why don't we embrace children's happiness?

We Will Finally Get Mathematics Education Right
By Keith Devlin
Publication Date: January 02, 2007
Quick Summary: Every year, Edge The World Question Center asks leading scientists "What are you optimistic about?" Here's one answer.


Keith Devlin: Mathematician; Executive Director, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford; Author, The Millennium Problems

The Real Purity of Pure Science
By Piet Hut
Publication Date: January 02, 2007
Quick Summary: January 2007

http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_index.html

Every year, Edge The World Question Center asks leading scientists "What are you optimistic about?" Here's one answer.

Piet Hut: Professor of Astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers and the Public
They Protect Teachers' Rights, Support Teacher Professionalism, and Check Administrative Power
By Diane Ravitch
Publication Date: December 22, 2006
Quick Summary: Kudos.

This is from American Educator, Winter 2006

Swingin' in the Rain
By Judith, Parent
Publication Date: December 20, 2006
Quick Summary: Here's a thought: If children had time to swing, might some of the ADD, anxiety disorders, depression, insomnia, and oppositional behavior disappear?

Snapshots from School
By Cynthia Peters
Publication Date: December 13, 2006
Quick Summary:
ZNet Commentary
A searing look at today's high school. As Peters observes, the really terrible thing about all this is that the children are trained to think that there is no other way it could be.


December 12, 2006

Largest Science Teachers Organization Rejects Gore Video ... Why?
By John F. Borowski
Publication Date: November 28, 2006
Quick Summary: This is from t r u t h o u t, November 28, 2006


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112806N.shtml

We need someone to expose the corporate connections of our other professional organizations. Then we'd begin to see why they don't make a full frontal assault on NCLB.

Teachers: The Ruby Slippers
By Peter Henry
Publication Date: November 25, 2006
Quick Summary: from the Minnesota English Journal
Fall 2006

Peter Henry asks What makes a teacher effective as a professional?

Interrogating Kids About Literature: HELP!
By Jeff Westergaard
Publication Date: November 22, 2006
Quick Summary: Jeff is asking for help from other teachers. Please respond to him.

jwestergaard@yahoo.com

Assignment: Persuasive Speech
By Hallie Garrison, high school student
Publication Date: November 15, 2006
Quick Summary: Given a suggested list of topics for a required speech, Hallie decided to chose her own, writing about high-stakes testing. She provides a provocative student-eye view of the system. This high schooler observes, "Our classes are like bombs, and in each one, if the teacher doesn?t figure out the code in time, well, you know what happens."

Edward in Deep Water (Edward-the-Unready): Book Review
By various reviewers, including Sarah Puglisi
Publication Date: November 09, 2006
Quick Summary: Here we get contrasting views of what types of books we should bring to young children. A librarian argues for always presenting The Little Engine that Could cheering section. Sarah, deeply involved with children who are struggling and one who isn't, celebrates a book that gently acknowledges that sometimes we aren't quite ready for the task at hand.

Grand Visions and Possible Lives
By Mike Rose
Publication Date: November 07, 2006
Quick Summary:
First published in Education Week, 10/11/06.
Mike Rose is so right: In all the blather, good and bad, written about schools, few document "the common, everyday detail of classrooms, the words and gestures of a good teacher." A decade ago, I took a similar journey, visiting classrooms in 27 states and witnessing that everyday detail. And feeling proud to call myself teacher.

The Critical Distinction Between Science and Religion
By Richard P. Sloan
Publication Date: November 02, 2006
Quick Summary: This article makes interesting points about attempts to quantify human experience. What happens, for example when you try to measure a sunbeam with a ruler, reducing it to what which can be quantified? What happens when you try to measure a child's reading experience with DIBELS?

America 101
By Bill Moyers
Publication Date: November 01, 2006
Quick Summary: October 27, 2006

Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and a veteran journalist. He delivered these remarks in San Diego on October 27 to the Council of Great City Schools , an organization of the nation?s largest urban public school systems.

He observes that teachers now are expected to staff the permanent emergency rooms of our country?s dysfunctional social order. They are expected to compensate for what families, communities, and culture fail to do.

Joel Klein's Iron Curtain
By Norman Scott
Publication Date: October 27, 2006
Quick Summary: Here is a powerful description of what happens when school policy becomes monlithic. Norm is talking about New York City, but what he describes will resonante with hundreds of thousands of teachers. Teaching has become a career in which the usurpation of any vestige of autonomy can make a grown man who knows how to teach cry. The parallels with Soviet domination of Eastern Europe are striking.

When will teachers have a revolution?

A shorter version of this column appeared in The Wave on October 20, 2006.

The full version is available on Norm's blog .

Please stop by and leave a comment.

A Plea to All Journalists
By Doug McGill
Publication Date: October 26, 2006
Quick Summary: This essay comes from: Local Man (a blog) by Doug McGill .

The Opposite of Wonderland
By Anne E. Levin Garrison
Publication Date: October 26, 2006
Quick Summary: ...as the speech ends and the words echoed: ?Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we?re free at last?? my daughter says she felt her heart pounding, racing!

Classroom Assessment: A Brave New World
By Dr. Douglas D. Christensen, Nebraska Commissioner of Education
Publication Date: October 24, 2006
Quick Summary: NOTE: This presentation was the Opening Keynote at the 2006 Leadership for Classroom Assessment Conference

Ohanian Comment: Although I disagree with the Standardisto assertion that teachers must always start with the ends, there is plenty here I do agree with. As Christensen observes, Regardless of NCLB as law, Washington does not know best. Lincoln does not know best. We are a lot closer to the action than the folks in Washington, DC.

We need to find ways to break down this hierarchical system because it is not going to get us where we want to go. We need a system where although there are different jobs to be done, the players come together collegially and as equals. Everyone comes to the table with something to contribute.

Improving College Aid
...and another perspective
By Washington Post Editorial/ with Comments from Annie
Publication Date: October 19, 2006
Quick Summary: Maybe there are Post readers willing to buy this load but it smells like rotten fish to me.

Notes From Sarah: Just Thinking at the End of a Long Day
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: October 08, 2006
Quick Summary: Sarah's notes touch so many chords in my own teaching memories. As we saw with our last visit to Sarah's classroom, she has a big, generous heart. And here she gives us a glimpse of one of the greatest pedagogical principles: What is given is returned.

Shop Class as Soulcraft
By Matthew B. Crawford
Publication Date: October 05, 2006
Quick Summary: Yes, the Wall Street Journal has pointed out the monetary benefits that accrue to those equipped for skilled manual work, but Matthew Crawford makes a strong case for the psychic benefits.

This essay is from The New Atlantis, a Journal of Technology and Society, Number 13, Summer 2006, pp. 7-24.

Another essay by Crawford, Science Education and Liberal Education, asks educators to consider why students should study science and takes a best-selling high school physics textbook to task for its pathetic answers.

Beyond No Child Left Behind
By Thomas Sobol
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
Quick Summary: from The Forum for Education and Democracy, Sept. 26, 2006

A loosely organized cadre of currently serving and recently retired school superintendents, called ?Public Schools for Tomorrow,? have been discussing issues beyond NCLB throughout the past year. Believing that superintendents with a life-long commitment to educating all children can bring a unique perspective to the dialogue, here are six of the issues they have identified.

Therapy That Keeps On the Sunny Side of Life: Rising Number of Therapists Focus on the Positive
By Elizabeth Bernstein
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
Quick Summary: from Wall Street Journal, Sept. 26, 2006

A small but increasing number of therapists are employing an emerging discipline known as "positive psychology." The treatment focuses primarily on the affirmative aspects of a patient's life with the goal of helping them feel more optimistic and fulfilled. What if we had a department in government that trained teachers to accentuate the positive?

Unstrung
By Jim Holt
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
Quick Summary: In string theory, beauty is truth, truth beauty. Is that really all we need to know?

For more than a generation, physicists have been chasing a will-o?-the-wisp called string theory. The beginning of this chase marked the end of what had been three-quarters of a century of progress. Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet, for all this activity, not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved. In fact, there is no theory so far?just a set of hunches and calculations suggesting that a theory might exist. And, even if it does, this theory will come in such a bewildering number of versions that it will be of no practical use: a Theory of Nothing. Yet the physics establishment promotes string theory with irrational fervor, ruthlessly weeding dissenting physicists from the profession. Meanwhile, physics is stuck in a paradigm doomed to barrenness.

Now read this passage again, substituting "Reading First panel of experts" and "scientific reading" for "physicists" and "string theory."

from The New Yorker Oct. 2, 2006

12 Traps That Keep Progressives From Winning
By George Lakoff
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
Quick Summary: Progressives need to start talking about values and avoid the common pitfalls that cause us to lose voters' hearts and minds.

from AlterNet, Sept. 26, 2006

A Good Day
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: September 25, 2006
Quick Summary:
When one runs a website that purports to be people-centered, then people write, asking for some attention to be centered on them. And there is an obligation to respond. I have changed all the names in this account, not even letting you know in which state this 18-year-old lives.

The Ballad of Big Mike
By Michael Lewis
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Quick Summary: It is very hard to know how to characterize this story. I'll just say that Michael Lewis knows how to tell a story. And this one will leave you breathless.

from New York Times Magazine Sept. 24, 2006

Too Serious
By Susan Ohanian
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Quick Summary: Book Review: Serious Farm by Tim Egan
Houghton Mifflin
pb 2006

Education: Class Dismissed
By Hara Estroff Marano
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Quick Summary: This article appeared in Psychology Today May/June 2006. Compare this view with the Sandy Kress observation when speaking at the EduState Summit in 2004: "...for those of you who are intimidated or threated by No Child Left Behind, the world is actually going to become worse as we go along. I mean to say, 'more demanding.' And it will look back at No Child Left Behind as kind of just an initial foot in the water, if you will, to the world we're about to enter."

Sandy Kress is Presidential advisor and chief architect of No Child Left Behind.

Hara Estroff Marsano is the author of Why Doesn't Anybody Like Me?": A Guide to Raising Socially Confident Kids.

Who would you rather sit next to at dinner if you wanted some advice on your children's happiness?