If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
GSAs offer so much more than just a place for LGBT students to belong. GSAs also offer a place where straight students can come to learn about LGBT issues. If a student is questioning their sexual orientation, a GSA is a great place to find resources that can help them in the process.
It's clear that the White House acknowledges the value and political clout of the HBCU community. The Obama administration has quietly worked to address some pressing needs of the HBCU community, while stopping short of the president wearing a Hillman College sweatshirt to his weekly press briefings.
Three cheers for California's governor, state superintendent, and state board chair, for applying for a waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind) that doesn't kowtow to Washington.
The STEM fields do indeed contribute to our technology-based economy, but whether they do so for good or ill depends upon how we grow these new educational shoots and to what end.
Let's base 100 percent of teacher pay on the results of standardized tests. But if we are to have true educational reform, a concept that seems to be lost when used by those who claim that mantle, I want the following conditions:
Nothing is more important than preparing our children to compete and succeed in the global economy. That means we need to make teaching not only one of America's most important professions, but also one of America's most valued profession.
As we work to get the economy back on track, no one is suggesting it would be a good idea to double interest rates on credit cards or home mortgages. Why then do some believe it's a good idea to double interest rates for students?
The federal government must open opportunities for young people to be decision makers nationally, just as communities across the country are already doing.
The struggle to make sure a quality education is available to every child -- and not just a privilege for a few -- is the unfinished and critical business before the nation for it will determine America's future place on the global stage in a rapidly changing competitive world.
I was a potential lemon, but I had the will and desire to change and others had the same commitment to help me. Yet there are many teachers who lack that will and who never improve year after year.
Education leaders appear oddly removed from the myriad out-of-school obstacles faced by the many students living in and near poverty.
Reliance on practices like suspensions, expulsions and arrests decrease academic achievement and increase the likelihood that students will be pushed out of school, oftentimes into the criminal justice system.
Closing schools is a decision with far-reaching consequences that shouldn't be undertaken for the credibility of any particular movement, but only as a final measure in support of undeserved students.
More than ever we -- teachers -- must be a vital part of this national conversation. As teachers, we have a responsibility to our students and communities to share our collective wisdom in an effort to facilitate quality reform.
If our best teachers are forced into choosing between earning a living wage and continuing to teach, our profession and our schools have a big problem.
