Well, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are here, and my district (and a few department members) see it as the panacea for this generation of students. While I don’t have anywhere near that sort of faith in the new standards, I do like the professional development that could stem from the implementation of the standards. However, I do see ...

My school district has told the high school English Department to create an assessment system like CollegeBoard’s SpringBoard program or else it gets the SpringBoard program. My department’s resistance to the SpringBoard program is, in part, as follows: expectations for kids will be lowered, vocabulary and grammar are not emphasized, it could ...

I mentioned in a recent post how Teach for America doesn’t get it. Neither does Liv Finne of The Seattle Times and the ST editorial board. (Ms. Finne speaks specifically to commenters in the comments section.) Filed under: Administration, Frustration, Union

We just finished our final exams this week and are ready for the summer. But, of course, a bit of finals week reflection is in order each year, and this year is no exception. I use these tests as a way to ensure that students can’t forget the material in the class, to have the kids ponder the courses’ big ideas, and to give the students a final ...

Previously I had posted about how education may be suffering from the loss of a generation of teachers. With few people retiring and no positions to hire, education could be losing a myriad of teachers to other professions. After all, if teaching isn’t hiring, someone else may be. Well, I’ve been accused of hyperbole with my coming thoughts, but ...

Washington State, like many other states, is hurting financially. No one questions this; however, the recovery methods and suggestions do cause me to pause and worry about the state’s and nation’s education futures. One column’s composer basically says teachers should be able to overcome all odds to create student success. Granted, the author ...

For those of you teaching Antigone by Sophocles this year, this article could be a valuable one for showing the students how art is more true to life (than reality TV even!). Apparently, students at Jamaica High School in New York City adapted Antigone to parallel their school district’s unequal treatment of students within their own school and ...

Teach For America is attempting to gain a foothold in Washington State and primarily by gaining positions in Seattle. However, TfA is unnecessary in Seattle. (Even one of TfA’s own has spoken out against TfA entering Seattle’s schools.) First, there is no shortage of teachers in Seattle. Seattle Public Schools had over 800 applications for the ...

I composed a post the other quickly detailing the difficulties of a class I have. The majority of the students have a history of failure and have just been passed through year after year. I couldn’t even get that group to turn in a summary assignment that we started in class. I appreciate the comments I received: advice, commiseration, and ...

I often discuss with my students the art of framing a question. I teach them how to fairly, justly, and ethically create a question based on neutrality and fact-finding. And then I tell them how to do it effectively. I like to illustrate framing an argument using one of the most controversial of topics–abortion. I ask them to consider the names ...