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A few weeks ago, we were excited to learn that Crook County Middle School's Michael Geisen, a forester-turned-science teacher, was named by the Council of Chief State School Officers as the 2008 National Teacher of the Year. Selected for an innovative teaching approach that focuses on the individual needs of students, school/community connections, and collaboration with his colleagues, Geisen is now spending a year traveling nationally and internationally as a spokesperson for education.

He recently spoke with Public School Insights about a variety of topics including what he hopes to achieve as teacher of the year, his belief in the need to redefine "basic skills" and "intelligence," the support teachers receive (or should receive), and how he personalizes teaching to foster a life-long love of learning while increasing standardized test scores.

Listen to 5 minutes of highlights from our interview (or read through the transcript below): ...

On Tuesday, we pondered the concern that the community schools approach recently championed by Randi Weingarten of the AFT could turn schools into "social service agencies of last resort" while driving education to the margins.  This is indeed a danger, we argued, when schools must use their money to "fill the void" left by cuts to essential social services. ...

Well, the DC Examiner did it again.  Their story about superintendents' compensation this morning bears the inflammatory headline, "Fat Cat Edu-crats: High Pay, Lavish Perks Enrich Schools Chiefs."  This just days after publishing "Local Teachers Are Cashing In," a story about the less than 2 percent of DC-area teachers who earn more than $100,000/year. ...

Addressing the American Federation of Schools convention after her election as president, Randi Weingarten urged the dramatic expansion of the community school model:

Can you imagine a federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?…Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities, child care and preschool, tutoring and homework assistance. Schools that include dental, medical and counseling clinics.

Robert Podiscio of the Core Knoweldge Blog worries that such schools could relegate education to the margins while becoming "social service agencies of last resort." This is definitely a danger--if schools lack the resources and support to carry out their broader role. Pondiscio thoughtfully describes what often happens when schools must redeploy their existing resources to fill the void left by policymakers who blithely de-fund programs for communities in greatest need. ...

Last week, we interviewed Paul Houston, who recently retired from his 14-year position at the helm of AASA, about his legacy as an educator and his thoughts on the current state of education reform.

This week, we turn our attention to another education leader who is reflecting on a long and distinguished career: Warlene Gary, who in late June retired from her position as executive director of the national PTA.

In our exclusive interview, Gary speaks about what she has accomplished in her 35-year career, her commitment to equity, her efforts at the PTA to reach out to poor communities and communities of color, and her frustration with the "paralysis of analysis" that hamstrings so many education reform discussions in Washington, DC. ...

In today's Education Gadfly, Checker Finn wrote a thoughtful, at times almost lyrical, meditation on the role of schools in forging national unity. Unlike most voucher advocates, he acknowledges the risk of national balkanization posed by the proliferation of "charters, vouchers, tax credits, virtual schools, magnets, hybrids, and on and on"--in other words, schools that often cater to specific ideological, social or religious interests without championing any larger vision of national identity.

Finn advocates "well-wrought, statewide academic standards joined to well-wrought and forceful state testing-and-accountability mechanisms" but concedes the difficulty of applying this structure to private schools under a voucher scheme. Indeed, private schools that accept public dollars, align their curricula with state standards, and submit to state testing and accountability strictures sound an awful lot like public schools and would most likely be anathema to all but the most temperate privatization supporters. (Apparently, a forthcoming Fordham report will wrestle with this issue.) ...

Over the past few months, we've been following the fortunes of recent attempts to place a moratorium on a Bush administration decision to prevent schools from claiming Medicaid reimbursements for transportation and administration costs. Just over a week ago, President Bush signed a bill containing this moratorium.  To quote our friends at NSBA's Boardbuzz:

Thanks to NSBA's grassroots efforts and lobbying, the President signed the War Supplemental Appropriations Bill this morning delaying the Medicaid rule which would eliminate certain transportation and administration reimbursements to schools for services provided to low-income students with disabilities. The Senate's June 26th vote on the measure, which included the same language as the bill the House passed on June 20, was an overwhelming 92-6. The new law means that federal Medicaid reimbursements to schools for the administrative and transportation services that they provide to eligible students will continue until at least April 1, 2009. ...

The recent flurry of reports and manifestos urging a more constructive federal role in K-12 education are bringing an important issue back into the policy limelight: the fact that the nation's poorest, most vulnerable students are least likely to attend schools with fully qualified staff members.

This renewed focus is long overdue. Unequal access to the most effective teachers and other school staff remains one of the most shocking inequities in the education system.  Federal leadership in closing the staffing gaps would be welcome, indeed. ...

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:   ...