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Last week I had the privilege of celebrating the work of the 2012 School Counselor of the Year, Nicole Pfleger, at an elegant gala event held at Union Station and sponsored by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA).  Nicole is a school counselor at Nickajack Elementary in Georgia’s Cobb County Public Schools and a reminder of how important individual excellence, leadership and enthusiasm are to the success of our students, schools, and districts.  Nicole is an impressive young woman with a talent for problem solving in the best interests of the students with whom she works.  At Nickajack Elementary she works to create an environment where students are respectful, responsible, and able to work cooperatively with others.  She established a school program called Rachel’s Challenge that focuses on creating a culture of compassion through acts of kindness and service projects.  This school wide program includes a curriculum, class meetings, service projects, student recognition and a Kindness and Compassion Club.

Pfleger has developed a close working relationship with a community homeless shelter for women and children where some of her students live, helping ...

Growing up, were you ever teased relentlessly by classmates? Did your parents go through a divorce, or did you lose a loved one? In high-school, were you frequently overwhelmed by classes, sports and college applications? If you managed to avoid all these scenarios, then you’re among a minority because events of this nature are commonplace for America’s children. As they cope with these stressors, learning frequently suffers and students need someone to turn to for help and support – that someone is a school counselor. ...

Much has already been written about the inaugural Digital Learning Day yesterday, which included a full day of virtual visits to schools across the country making good use of digital media to engage high schools students and address a variety of learning needs and styles and a Town Hall meeting that featured U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, among other high profile policymakers and education leaders. 

As someone who has advocated for effective and appropriate use of technology to support teaching and learning, I found much about yesterday’s event to appreciate.  For sure, the ideas expressed aren’t new or revolutionary, and Arne Duncan and ...

Today is Digital Learning Day, designated to celebrate the innovative use of digital technology in classrooms across the country. A key element of the celebration is to inspire a national conversation, one that can support educators and officials as they incorporate digital technology into individual school buildings and classrooms. Digital Learning Day is an initiative of the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Center for Secondary School Digital Learning and Policy. The success of this initiative relies heavily on continued implementation efforts over the next five to ten years. ...

Tomorrow is the inaugural Digital Learning Day, a nationwide celebration of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology. New technologies are the future of learning, and it is inspiring to see how some teachers and schools are transforming the educational experience.

While celebrating these accomplishments, we must not forget that there are still a number of children who lack access to the promise that digital learning offers. Often, these children are also disadvantaged by virtue of their socioeconomic status.

Nick Pandolfo’s recent piece for The Hechinger Report really drives this point home. He highlights Bronzeville Scholastic Institute, a school that (according to the article) shares a homework lab with two others at Chicago’s DuSable High School campus – 24 computers for nearly a thousand students. Many of the school’s students (93% of whom receive free or reduced price lunch) cannot afford computers at home, and they do not have much access to them at school. Pandolfo writes that “Bronzeville Scholastic students born into a digital era struggle with basic skills, such as saving work to a flash drive and ...

Last month I learned that I had been appointed to the Recommendations for Education and Advancement of Learning (REAL) Agenda Commission whose job is to recommend an initial research and policy agenda for Digital Promise by producing a report to be delivered in April to White House Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra. Digital Promise is a national center created by Congress to advance technologies to transform teaching and learning.  The Commission is chaired by Dave Belanger, from AT&T, Arden Bement, from Purdue University, and Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, from Apollo Research Institute, and its membership includes representatives from technology companies, some of whom have been doing business with K-12 schools for some time and some of whom have not.  The commission is managed by TechAmerica Foundation and facilitated by Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow.   The only practicing K-12 educator on ...

Updated 1/31/12

In the State of the Union, President Obama made several references to education, reiterating its importance to his administration and to a healthy economy. 

While k-12 education was not a primary focus of the speech, he did touch directly on a few major education issues. He pointed out that nearly all states have raised their academic standards in recent years. He also made one very specific policy proposal: He called on all states to keep students in school until they either graduate from high school or turn 18.

In addition, the President emphasized the importance of good teachers. As he put it:

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

What did the education community have to say about this speech?

Gayle Manchin, president of the National Association of State Boards of Education, was pleased that ...

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Elementary school principals and teachers often lack resources to effectively combat instances of bullying that disrupt the learning environment. A recent report provides resources to help educators maintain a supportive atmosphere.

On January 14 and 15, "CNN Presents" aired coverage of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's visit to Southern Middle School in Reading, Pennsylvania. The episode looked at districts in several states, but Reading stood out as a district in dire straits. The video footage from Reading showed mold and mildew, leaking buildings, and rain pouring into a classroom.

The poor indoor environmental quality of this school and many more around the country has a devastating impact on the health and performance of the student and staff who study and work in these buildings every day. Poor indoor environmental quality is linked to asthma, respiratory illness, headaches, and other short and long term health problems. Asthma alone is one of the leading causes of absenteeism in the United States, causing many children to miss school or be tardy each day.

While schools in all communities are in need of some repair, as with many concerns in public education, it is students who live in low-income and minority communities who often suffer the most from ...

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library. Materials are added at the rate of 10,000 per day and the Copyright Office has a card catalogue with more than45 million card entries. It contains 838 miles of bookshelves and holds a collection of more than 147 million items. The Library is open to the public and its resources are available on-site in Washington D.C to anyone older than 16 with government issued identification. The American Memory Project – an effort to digitalize a large portion of the Library’s collection – has more than  9 million items available electronically, for free, to anyone with access to the internet. ...