A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Empowering Professionals
Blog Entries
The last few weeks have brought us six new inspiring stories about successful public schools and districts. Be sure to check them out: ...
The NEA has just released a major new paper on the federal role in education entitled Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020.
In doing so, they join a number of other groups that have deemed it high time to clarify the federal role after seven years of NCLB--and before a new administration arrives in January. (See, for example, the recent report by the Forum for Education and Democracy and the even more recent statement released by a distiguished task force calling for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.")
NEA's report begins with the premise that NCLB has thrown the federal role out of whack, creating "top-down, command-and-control, federally prescriptive testing and accountability mandates" that have narrowed curricula, robbed assessment of its power as an instructional tool and failed to close achievement gaps.
With the aim of ensuring universal access to great public schools by 2020, the NEA document outlines six priorities for federal involvement in education: ...
In June, two towering figures in education and on the LFA Board retired: Paul Houston of AASA and Warlene Gary of the national PTA.
I recently interviewed Houston about the state of public schools, the state of school reform, his vision for the future of public education, and his own legacy after 14 years at the helm of the American Association of School Administrators. (My tribute to Warlene Gary will appear in this space next week.)
In the interview, Houston describes the failure of too many recent reform efforts to address 21st-century challenges, the danger of looking to China for guidance on education policy, the American education system's abiding faith in second chances, the evolving role of the superintendent, and the reasons for his famous bloody-mindedness on matters of school reform. ...
Today, the New York Times published Jennifer Medina's story about the success of the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, a small school that sends almost all of its students--the large majority of them poor--to college. The school's inspiring success is a testament to the passion and unrelenting hard work of its staff and students.
Still, an aspect of the Times story left me distinctly uneasy. "To hear the tales of the new graduates is to understand the enormous effort and amount of resources it takes to make a school succeed," Medina writes. "Teachers and other staff members routinely work 60 hours a week.... [School Principal Elana] Karopkin said it would be unfair to say she was burned out, but admitted she was nothing less than 'exhausted,' both physically and emotionally." Asked about her staff's workload, she replied that "nobody should be forced to choose between educating other people's children and having their own." ...
In the first installment of our interview with innovative teacher Luajean Bryan, Bryan described the hands-on projects that have driven up enrollments in her advanced math and science classes. In this second installment, she tells us about her strategies for overcoming the challenges teachers face when attempting do these types of projects, including how she corrals the resources she needs and her thoughts about the "time" dilemma.
Be sure to listen to our highlights from the interview (5 minutes):
Or check out our transcript: ...
A new report from the venerable National Research Council has found that teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are more likely than their peers to boost their students' achievement and to remain in teaching.
You can read more about the report and the National Board here. ...
While poking around the internet today, we encountered what looks like the trailer to Dave Eggers' and Vanessa Roth's planned documentary on the professional lives of teachers. Eggers told me in our recent interview that they intend the documentary to transform public perceptions of teaching and fuel much stronger public support for public schools.
Eggers, a best-selling author, and Roth, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, certainly have the talent and fame to get their film noticed. Still, they have their work cut out for them.
Anyway, I suspect we'll hear more about this documentary in the coming months. ...
Alexander Russo's recent blog posting about the French film that received the Palme d'Or at Cannes last week caught my attention. The Class (Entre les Murs), which depicts a year in a junior high school that serves one of Paris's poorest neighborhoods, won nearly unanimous praise at Cannes--which is no mean feat. Here's hoping that the film crosses the pond soon and finds a large American audience. ...
In this third and final installment of our interview, Eggers announces his plans to create a new documentary depicting the professional lives of teachers. (You heard it here first.)
Eggers and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Roth are collaborating on a film they hope will do for teaching what An Inconvenient Truth did for the environment. Featuring footage taken by teachers themselves, the film aims to offer a first-hand view of the challenges educators face every day--and to inspire greater public support for teachers' work.
...
In the first installment of our interview with best-selling author Dave Eggers, Eggers told us about 826 National, the network of community-based centers he co-founded to help students with their expository and creative writing skills.
In this second installment, Eggers describes his strategies for motivating reluctant writers. These strategies include:
...
SIGN UP
Sign up for our e-newsletter on public school success.
A VISION FOR GREAT SCHOOLS
On this website, educators, parents and policymakers from coast to coast are sharing what's already working in public schools--and sparking a national conversation about how to make it work for children in every school. Join the conversation!
