Recent Comments
Author Archives: schooldog
Discipline and Students of Color: the Ecology of Student Experience
You are a student of color in a large American high school, perhaps also a recent immigrant. A friend of yours has run afoul a school code; let us say by talking disrespectfully, out of control, to a teacher. Continue reading
Posted in At Risk Students, School Reform, Schools and Culture, Schools and Politics
Tagged alternative schools, charter schools, disproportionate discipline, econlogy of schools, ecosystem of schools, iGrad, school funding, staff mix school funding, students of color, Suspension, unconscious bias, Washington State Legislature
Leave a comment
Assault on Obamacare Imperils Low Income Students
The Congressional assault on Obamacare undercuts school reform by eliminating health care insurance for many low income students; healthy kids learn better. Continue reading
Mindfulness and the Low Income Brain Drain
Mindfulness and meditation emerge as one tool in schools’ slow grapple with the psychological and neurobiological consequences of poverty in student lives. Continue reading
Yes, Betsy DeVos, Public Schools Do Make Gains
In this new climate where educators anticipate a Betsy DeVos assault on public schools, it is well to publicize success stories in the public school arena Continue reading
I Am A Teachers’ Union Man (With An Asterisk)
Against a decline of unions in general, scant evidence exists for charges from free market types that teachers unions are a chief hindrance to school reform. But there is room for teachers’ unions to be more effective school change agents. Continue reading
After All These Years, Separate Still Looks Unequal
Resegration of American neighborhoods leaves kids of color disproportionately exposed to the challenges of growing up in homogeneously poor neighborhoods and going to inferior schools. Comparisons to their poor white counterparts show the latter more likely to live in economically mixed neighborhoods with correspondingly better schools. Will one day we hear renewed calls to desegregation of schools and communities? Continue reading
Posted in School Reform, Schools and Culture, Schools and Politics
Tagged African American graduation rate, Black Lives Matter, cognitive emotional development, desegregation, detrack, heterogeneous grouping, high poverty neighborhoods, low income kids of color, poor white students, resegregation, separate but unequal
Leave a comment
Will School Funding Reform Include Resources for Low Income Youth?
School Funding Reforms in Washington State and California properly should include additional funding for at risk low income youth. Continue reading
Posted in At Risk Students, Schools and Politics
Tagged ample provision for education of all students, at risk low income students, high poverty districts, McCleary ruling, school funding mechanisms, special needs students, staff mix, Washington State school funding, Washington State Supreme Court
Leave a comment
We the People and the Slouch of the Rude Beast
The dangers of the coming Presidency are real and shocking and have left many still numbed; all citizens, most pointedly teachers of the youth, have a role to play in buttressing rights and freedoms we may take for granted. Continue reading
For-Profit Schools Make a Name for Themselves, and It Isn’t a Good One
Experience to this date with for-profit charter schools across the country and in Betsy DeVos’ Michigan indicates this particular free market solution simply doesn’t pencil out where it collides with a public good. Continue reading
Betsy DeVos, the Force Behind Detroit School Chaos
With apparently good intentions to help kids trapped in “low wattage” schools, Betsy DeVos, a champion of charters and school choice, by leverage of her family’s financial and political clout, has engineered changes in Michigan schools that have lowered their standing, and undercut the viability of Detroit schools. She has been tapped as Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education. Continue reading
schooldog 