Over the last year I have engaged many educators on the topic of using “Cellphones” as learning tools in the classroom. I would say that in most of these discussions, the leading reason given not to have “Cellphones” in a classroom is that they are a distraction.

For the purpose of this post, I am placing some Webster definitions here:

Telephone: an instrument for reproducing sounds at a…

I was intrigued by your survey question today about the satisfaction of how principals are being groomed by districts. By the time I responded, 87% had responded "no". I assume the majority of members of School Leadership are teachers who aspire to be leaders. If that's the case, then why do they voice dissatisfaction? An other survey question might be: "Are supervisors equipped with the knowledge and skills to help teachers become better teachers?" Certainly the most important role of…

In an attempt to better understand second-career teachers and to better develop future policy and practice, please share 5 statements regarding each theme below. 

• Clarification of terms: Second-career teacher is a…

If The Test Wasn't Coming...

Ariel Sachs

Putting together an education conference is a huge undertaking that is often overlooked, or at least not fully appreciated  by the attendees. It is not that people are intentionally unappreciative, but they may not realize all that goes into the planning, and execution of such a multi-faceted endeavor. This conference requires a huge effort to solicit, register, organize, accommodate, and deliver over 400 sessions to over 8,000 attendees, and over 200 vendors throughout a four-day event.…

How do we judge performance while maintaining the humanity of a profession that rests on an exchange of ideas between the child and adult?  Thus is the dilemma faced throughout our nation as we grapple with the impact of testing our students and evaluating our teachers in the age of the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) process.  The art and science of teaching and learning is of course more than either the sharing of ideas and the grading of students and…

Wow, I am surprised at our recent poll as of tonight not seeing teacher quality as having improved. I work in special education and have been pretty impressed and refreshed with the young professionals hard work and creativity. It would seem their technology skills alone would have brought something to the table. 

Over the next few days my blog will be a snapshot album of words describing what it is like to attend a premiere education conference, ASCD12. This is an experience that most educators rarely experience over the course of their careers. It is not an inexpensive proposition to send educators to national conferences. For some reason many districts use that as a reason to send the same administrators year after year to these conferences. I think administrators have the idea that their district…

The Intangible Assets of Public Schools

By Christopher Hale

Currently, there is a national effort focused on implementing a standardized assessment of teaching and learning. In the assessments that are currently being discussed, teachers, principals, and thereby entire schools are going to be assigned a value based on growth in math and reading scores, which themselves are the key element of what is known as the “Common…

In order for educators to teach kids, they need something to teach. Exactly what it is that educators should teach has often been discussed and continues to be the focus of ongoing discussions for over many generations. The delivery of that content, in regard to what to teach, has never been of great concern, because the bulk of it came in the form of text, delivered in a book called the textbook. In the 50’s the education pioneers introduced film strips, 16mm films, and recordings to…

Is it ignorance, arrogance, or a combination of the two that has led us to this point in education? Having those in charge promulgate an evaluation system that is based on a “gothca” mentality, not based on sound research and which no other country in the world does, is unconscionable.

The state education officials and the politicians do not care about what the research says. They do not care what the leaders in the field say, and they certainly do not care what the practitioners…

The Life of a Long Island Teacher

By, Paul Romanelli

(Teacher in the Harborfields CSD, Former Suffolk County Math Teacher of the Year and Recipient of the 2012 SCOPE Teacher Service Award)

        As we see more and more Federal and State mandates being implemented, it is important to realize that everything rolls downhill, and the final resting place is the classroom.  This is a classroom in which the Secretary of…