School Reform

This piece comes to us courtesy of New Haven Independent. As Obama's top school official came to a city turnaround school Tuesday, he popped a ques...

While suspension rates have risen steadily since the 1970s, there remains little to no evidence that zero-tolerance discipline policies such as suspension and expulsion improve school safety or student achievement.

Think of how the divisiveness in education would decrease if we borrowed from the Bill of Rights and adopted a code of ethics declaring, "No stakes shall be attached to standardized tests without the consent of the student or educator."

How do we get those focused on accountability reform to listen to those of us having conversations about real reform? Therein lies the question. How do we get them to respect what we have to say?

Acknowledging the real root of the problem -- state school monopolies -- seems like an attack on government. But it is not an attack to observe that government is bad at running schools, anymore than it's an attack on shovels to note that they make lousy Web browsers.

We've learned a lot over the years about how our kids learn best. But putting that knowledge to work in our communities and classroom isn't always as easy as it sounds.

While Accelerated Reader suggests that it inspires literacy habits, its primary customer is the bureaucrat impressed by the marketing slogan, "Advanced Technology for Data-Driven Schools."

The Expanding Learning and Afterschool Project is a 50-state initiative that gives educators easy and direct access to research and promising practices that can help them use time beyond the conventional school day most effectively for learning.

Over the years, I have visited hundreds of schools serving poor communities and have long concluded that regardless of how challenging a school is, extraordinary principals and teachers can utterly transcend such challenges and create a powerful and successful learning environment.

The rich and powerful have lined up firmly on the side of school reform, which is defined as a system where teachers lack job security and standardized testing becomes all-important.

I know that the CUSD is blessed with competent teachers and leaders, but it doesn't hurt to listen to the advice of someone on the outside looking in.

Our field has been under bipartisan attack for a while now, as our feminized profession (76% female) has joined the ranks of all the other "bad" women throughout history accused of threatening society's well-being.

Many school districts across the U.S. could benefit from genuine school reform, but they may lack the resources and/or expertise to carry it out. The ...

What is happening is that the teaching profession will become the least desirable for any bright, capable and idealistic student which will result in the further intellectual impoverishment of public schools.

The entire school reform movement is predicated on a hypothesis: boosting student achievement, as measured by standardized tests, will enable greater prosperity. But is this hypothesis correct?

What is a whole child approach to education? It is an education that enhances learning by addressing each student's social, emotional, physical, and a...

We want the end of punitive high stakes testing that labels children, teachers and schools as failures. We do not want our tax dollars going to the pockets of testing and data companies. We refuse to allow our community-based public school be labeled as "failing."

The conversation about school reform in Washington is replete with big ideas -- glossy proposals for "accountability," putting the "students first," fixing "broken" schools, all in hopes of making America "competitive" again. Yet our schools are poorer than ever.

We should make equal educational opportunity a federal civil right for all students. This should include the right to a challenging curriculum, well-trained and effective teachers, and the funding to provide these essentials.

The real benefit of technology will be in the development of new learning progressions -- pathways that combine adaptive learning, social learning, and project-based learning -- that are engaging, efficient, and effective.

Readers will be empowered to dream bigger, act bolder and eschew the incrementalism plaguing public education policy.