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In this year’s Metlife Survey of the American Teacher there’s good news and there’s bad news.

In the good news column, parent engagement has increased in the past 25 years, though it still remains a challenge for many schools.  The bad news exposed that teachers are less satisfied with their careers and that in the past two years there has been a significant decline in teachers’ satisfaction with their profession.  In one of the most dramatic findings of the report, teacher satisfaction has decreased by 15 points since the survey measured job satisfaction two years ago.  It has now reached the lowest level of job satisfaction seen in the survey series in more than two decades.

This troubling news should be a wakeup call for all of us, especially since in addition to the low morale problem, the number of teachers who indicated they will be leaving their jobs for both retirement and other fields has markedly ...

More than 20% of U.S. households with children experienced food insecurity at some time during 2010. This means that at times, they were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members. More than 40% of K-8 teachers say that children coming to school hungry is a serious problem at their school. It is shocking to think how many children go hungry in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

There is certainly a moral argument to be made that as a society we should ensure children receive the food they need to grow and thrive. There are also practical arguments that can be made (for example, children who receive proper nutrition are less likely to become obese and suffer from related conditions such as ...

Editor’s Note: Our guest blogger today is Susan Hildreth. Susan serves as the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a position to which President Obama appointed her in January 2011.

Museums and libraries are an essential component of any vision of the future of learning. Helping these institutions to create engaging and empowering learning experiences is one of the primary goals of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The classic field trip to a museum is still a valuable tool for elementary school teachers. But the relationship museums and libraries now have with schools is much more collaborative than that of host and guest for an occasional visit. ...

And why was it there?
And why was it lifted and taken somewhere…?

Back in 1971, Dr. Seuss brought us the Lorax, a small orange creature who speaks for the trees (“for the trees have no tongues”). The Lorax goes up against the greedy Once-ler, who cuts down all the Truffula  trees in his rush to make a product he believes that everyone must have – Thneeds ("It's a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat."). As a result of the damage to the environment that his production brings, the Lorax and the other inhabitants of the community (Swomee-Swans, Brown Bar-ba- loots, and Humming-Fishes) must leave.

The story is told by the remorseful Once-ler to a young boy curious as to why the world is the way it is. At the end, the Once-ler reveals that he has saved one last Truffula seed and gives it to the boy so that he can create a new forest.

Today, March 2, The Lorax serves as the centerpiece of the National Education Association’s 15^th Read Across America campaign.* I am so pleased that The Lorax is the highlight of the day. On a personal level, it is one of my favorite Seuss books. And on an educational level, in addition to promoting the literacy skills the day intends to celebrate, it can also help students develop some of the other skills they will need to be successful in the global community – a favorite theme of politicians and ...

Editor’s Note: Our guest blogger today is Michael Ragan, Vice President of the Washington Education Association and Chair of the Washington Learning First Alliance.

January 5^th, 2012, was a momentous day for public education in Washington State.  That was the day the Washington Supreme Court unanimously upheld the McCleary trial court’s decision that the State is not fulfilling its constitutional duty to amply fund public education.

Article IX, section 1 of our constitution states that “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…”  Without dissent, the Supreme Court declared in the written opinion that paramount duty means this mandate is the State’s first and highest priority, before any other; that ample provision means considerably more than adequate; that all children means no child is excluded; and that education means the basic knowledge and skills needed to compete in today’s economy and meaningfully participate in our democracy.  The high court also completely rejected all of the State’s excuses, even the State’s claim that a financial crisis can justify education funding cuts. The State did not dispute any of the trial court findings on the importance of education to ...

Question: What is found throughout the school meal program that can be deadly dangerous?

If you answered food allergens, you would be right. Six percent of students have a food allergy and the big eight of food allergies (soy, eggs, milk, fish, wheat, shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts) are found throughout school meal programs and family meals alike.  It is very likely that a school will have one or more students whose life could be threatened by eating the wrong thing. Data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2006 School Health Policies and Programs Study indicate that approximately 88% of schools had one or more students with a food allergy. School employees need to know what to do to prevent life threatening reactions and families need to know that their children are being protected.

On Wednesday, February 22 NEA HIN participated in a School Nutrition Foundation webinar, entitled Teamwork is Key to Successful Food Allergy Management in Schools.  Over ...

A recent article in the Kappan, a publication of Phi Delta Kappa International, a member organization of the Learning First Alliance (LFA), chronicles the efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to create and support passage of “model legislation” for states that advocates increasing what they refer to as “choice” and “scholarships” (read vouchers) in public schooling.  Authors Julie Underwood and Julie F. Mead, both on faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, make a strong case that ALEC is behind the recent legislative efforts in Midwestern states to strip public employees of their bargaining rights and modify school funding provisions to allow greater shares of public funds to go to for-profit education provider; companies specifically mentioned are K-12 and Connections Academy.

I have a long-held belief that market forces as they relate to access to quality education have no place in American public schooling, and I believe that as long as we fund our public schools primarily with local tax dollars, local communities should have a strong say in how those school are operated.  However, I do think there’s a role for the for-profit community in designing and ...

Yesterday I wrote about the DREAM Program in San Diego’s North County, where third-graders whose teachers had training and ongoing support in incorporating the arts – puppetry, miming, acting, dancing and more – into the curriculum showed incredible improvement on standardized reading tests compared to students whose teachers did not get such training or support.

Another successful program recently came to my attention out of Auburn, Maine. There, a controversial decision to supply iPads to kindergarten students is showing promising outcomes. Students who used iPads last fall scored higher than peers who did not in nine of out 10 areas recently tested around pre-reading skills, with one area – recognizing sounds and writing letters – statistically higher.

These two programs take extremely different approaches to improving student outcomes. Yet the success of both, like the success of most education initiatives, is discussed in the same way - almost entirely in terms of standardized assessments.

While test scores are important, they are not the end-all, be-all of student learning. Both of these programs are likely developing skills that students will need to be successful in the global community, but that ...

A recent article in the San Diego Union-Tribune celebrated the Developing Reading Education with Arts Method (DREAM) program that is being implemented in ten school districts in San Diego’s North County. The program trains and supports third- and fourth-grade teachers in incorporating the arts (puppetry, miming, acting, dancing and more) into their lessons.

The results are, as quoted in the article, “astonishing.” Third-grade students whose teachers received a week-long summer training on integrating the arts into their teaching and weekly in-class coaching from arts professionals had an 87-point average increase on a standardized reading test (which is scored from 150 to 600). Students whose teachers received no arts training had just a 25-point average increase. While we know that standardized test scores are not always an accurate indicator of whether students are learning, this model is definitely one to consider as we look for ways to raise the reading levels of all students.

Three things stuck out to me as key lessons we can transfer from the DREAM experience to other educational endeavors:

1) A rich curriculum, including the arts, is important. We at the Learning First Alliance have long recognized the benefits of including the arts as part of a rich curriculum in our public schools, and we have lamented the narrowing of the curriculum in ...

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LFA Executive Director Cheryl S. Williams joins WriteSteps' Suzanne Klein on The Balancing Act to discuss both the importance of writing and educational tools teachers can use to help students meet new, higher writing standards.