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Category Archives: School Reform
School Reform: Yes, There Is Some Good News!
Summary: School reform is a long and often discouraging slog. This is a pause to celebrate the many hopeful events and trends that together refresh for the next round. It is time to celebrate positives in the many headed effort … Continue reading
School Reform: Has the Baby Been Thrown Out With the Bath Water?
Summary: In the tight focus on testing for basic skills and the evaluation of teachers, do we look past issues such as critical thinking and civic education? Every now and then in my personal life I stop and realize I … Continue reading
School Reform and the Greening of Teachers’ Unions
Summary: Announcement that the National Education Association will engage dissident teachers in dialogue is a welcome step toward improving teachers’ union real involvement in school change. The apparent dearth of reform themes emanating from the union side in bargaining talks … Continue reading
School Reform and the Confusion of Labels
Summary: Who are the school reformers, and how do we tell them apart? And what do traditional labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” mean in this context? Who are the reformers in American education? Honestly, in my time in schools, … Continue reading
School Reform and Politics: Teach for America and Its Political Identity
Summary: Has Teach for America been hijacked by conservative and market ideology? Teach for America has become a political lightning rod in the struggle over reform in American education. The organization was originally conceived as an avenue through which to … Continue reading
School Reform and Politics: The Inflammatory and the Misperception Across the School Reform Divide
Summary: An op ed piece from the Washington Policy Center is examined for its “non-partisan” view on the Washington Education Association and school reform in Washington State. School reform is a highly complex enterprise, with streaming from the surrounding culture … Continue reading
School Reform and Bureaucracy: The Washington State Charter Battle
Summary: A lawsuit challenging Washington’s new charter school law on constitutional grounds may be embarrassingly in the end a defense of a dysfunctional status quo. I believe in teachers. Not the Type A’s that reformers would like to attract from … Continue reading
School Reform: Teacher Entrepreneurs Need Not Apply
Summary: Innovation and entrepreneurship by teachers tend to be dead on arrival because of a broader school culture which favors hierarchical directives. How are teachers to be established as the cornerstone player in a decentralized school culture, as I argue … Continue reading
Posted in School Bureaucracy, School Reform
Tagged administrative style, communication in schools, empowering teachers, entrepreneurship and teachers, flat oranizations, innovation in schools, school administrator training, school reform, teacher morale, teacher motivation, teacher professionalism
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School Reform: Testing and Mistaking the Forest for the Trees
Summary: The struggles in our schools will not be won by resort to more standardized testing, but by a recommitment to the central role of the teacher in the classroom. The stories of impactful teachers are legion; the myth of … Continue reading
School Reform: The Finnish Reinvention of Teaching — A Tale of Revolution in Culture
Summary: A central feature in the successful reform of Finnish schools has been the placement of teachers at center stage, as professionals on a social par with doctors and lawyers, and with autonomous responsibility for the academic growth of their … Continue reading
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