Join the conversation

An Exclusive Interview with Richard Simmons about His Campaign for P.E. in Schools

Tank top, striped shorts and all, Richard Simmons is becoming a force to be reckoned with in Washington's education policy debate.  He has mounted a major campaign to get physical education into the schools and has caught the attention of key policymakers on Capitol Hill.

Amidst all this activity, he recently found time to talk me about his goals, the dire need for physical education and his frustration with the glacial pace of reform in Washington during an election year.

Richard told me about his advocacy for the FIT Kids Act, which would establish a framework for schools to closely look at the quality and quantity of PE they are providing, and to supply parents with that information to better understand the PE their kids are receiving. ...

Mimi Bair is the principal of Memorial Middle School in Little Ferry, NJ, and a former staff member at Woodrow Wilson Elementary in Weehawken, where she helped implement an innovative arts-focused curriculum that has helped the school's mostly low-income students outperform students state-wide.  (You can find PublicSchoolInsights.org's story on Woodrow Wilson Elementary here.)

Ms. Bair recently shared some of the secrets of her success.

...

In the week since the New York Times published a conversation on education philanthropy entitled How Many Billionaires Does It Take to Fix a School System, some high-profile bloggers have characterized the piece as an unintentionally sad commentary on the state of education funding.  The  transcript of a conversation among NYT Magazine editor Paul Tough and five education talking heads: Green Dot Charter School Founder Steve Barr, American Enterprise Institute education impresario Frederick Hess, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Venture Philanthropist Vanessa Kirsch and former Gates Foundation education head Tom Vander Ark.

To Diane Ravitch, the article confirms that the champions of corporate-style education reform have nothing but disdain for those "ordinary educators who toil in the classroom.... Only those untainted by actual direct experience of education have the insight to 'fix' the school system."  ...

In honor of NEA's Read Across America, I'm posting an exclusive interview with celebrated children's book author Joseph Bruchac, who for over 30 years has captivated millions of young readers with his more than 70 books.  His writing often draws inspiration from his Abenaki Indian heritage and offers a strong corrective to what Bruchac sees as widespread and damaging stereotypes about American Indians.

Bruchac spoke with me about strategies for motivating children to read.  He offered ideas for helping struggling readers, resources parents and teachers can use to combat stereotypes in children's literature, thoughts on the promise and perils of the internet, observations the shortcomings of standardized assessments, and a preview of his forthcoming books.

Read through a transcript of interview highlights below.  Click here for the full 23-minute version.

Or choose specific segments of the interview from the following list: ...