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Tag Archives: empowering teachers
Schools: A Changed Perspective
Summary: On the cusp of the end of a career in schools and the onset of a blog infested retirement, some meditations on the changed perspective the shift in life imposes. And a plea for stories, please. This summer I … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Charters Schools and Teachers’ Unions
Summary: Last week, as part of a discussion of charter schools, I cited the Harlem’s Children Zone as an umbrella project that has changed the “context” of associated schools, and thereby the expectations of students and the realities from which … Continue reading
Charter Schools: The Emerging Lessons
Summary: A review of lessons from charter schools so far unfortunately boils down to more money for staffing to reach at risk kids, and creative changes in the context through which kids approach school, also likely to require more funding. … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Reflections on Survival and Other Personal Idiosyncrasies: Part C
Summary: Being the last installment of a series of reflections on long term survival in the belly of the educational beast.….. Despite the relentless bureaucratic monolith, pockets of encouragement and support for individual vision occur, which have helped my longevity. … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Notes on Staying “Alive”
A younger colleague, in the midst of a discussion about some relatively minor indignity we counselors have suffered or observed, turned to me recently and asked as though to a veteran of many wars, “how do you do it?” She … Continue reading
School Politics: Is Teacher Evaluation Destined for the Rabbit Hole? (Part B)
Last post (5/18/12) I introduced an article by Jenny Anderson in the New York Times, February 19, 2012, “States Try to Fix Quirks in Teacher Evaluations”, and explored some of the ins and outs of reform efforts in teacher … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Teacher Evaluation Reform
Summary: Top down federal or state mandates have a role, but may also suppress professionalism on the local level. The latter, not good. About the time I wrote my last post urging union and administration alike to find common ground … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy and Some Politics: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part D
Summary: Referring back to last week’s post, a plan to provide study time in our school served as a promising example of the incremental changes needed to further reform in schools. The story is here continued. On what seemed to … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part C
Summary: A program to provide extra help to struggling students in one school shows the potential inherent in staff/administration cooperative planning. Among the casualties of recession driven budget cuts in our school was the after school activity bus, admittedly a … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part B
Summary: A fledgling initiative in Washington State with exceeding promise nonetheless demonstrates the pitfalls of hierarchical directives. Politicians talk about the rising gap between the rich and the poor, the upper economic classes and the lower economic classes. In Washington … Continue reading
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