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Monthly Archives: March 2009

What Doesn’t Work

Friday, March 27, 2009

For several years I have looked forward to the day when education policy would move beyond the utopian delusion that all students will would be proficient by 2014, a day that still appears to be a long way off. There’s a new ed.gov website set up for teachers, to help “…all students read and do [...]

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It’s Like Winning the Lottery

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Alaska has a merit pay system for teachers, but teachers don’t think much of it. In fact, one local school staff here even turned down the money in 2007. It’s the school my own kids attended. As it happens, many Houston teachers – the same ones Obama mentioned in his speech – feel the same, [...]

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From the Department of Poetic Justice

Monday, March 16, 2009

It’s been fun, in a mildly twisted sense, reading the responses deconstructing the president’s disappointing education speech. Who do we suppose he was talking to when he said …if a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching. I reject a system that [...]

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Free and Voluntary Reading

Thursday, March 5, 2009

I’m trying something different this year. I’m not assigning novels and telling everyone which pages to read, having class discussions about the themes, providing background knowledge, making vocabulary lists, or asking “comprehension” questions that I mark for a grade. This year, everyone in the class reads what they want to read, and they read without [...]

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