Open Your Classroom Door to 'Be Better'

It's May. It's spring in Colorado. My 6th graders are starting to sound, smell, and act like ... 7th graders. Sunshine and storms trade places depending on the day, so…

May 2013 Volume X Issue V

Just for the ASKing! is a monthly e-newsletter that addresses the needs of all those who strive to be instructional leaders. This month, Bruce reflects on what he sees as the belief systems we should use to guide our decisions and actions and asks leaders to step back and reflect on their own core values and how those impact their practice and the practice of their colleagues.…

Possible Downsides with “No Excuses” Policies in Some Charter Schools

In this thought-provoking article in Educational Researcher, Joan Goodman (University of Pennsylvania) examines the “rule-oriented” environment characteristic of the inner-city schools run by certain Charter Management Organizations (CMOs). “A conspicuous feature of the regulated environment,” says Goodman, “is an insistence on continuous compliance to pervasive rules that…

Grading writing: The art and science — and why computers can’t do it

Why collaboration is vital to creating effective schools

Connecting test scores to teacher evaluations: Why not?

Dangerously Irrelevant

APRIL 28, 2013 BY SCOTT MCLEOD 

We Need a New Approach to Principal Selection

In charting a course to sail your boat around the world, you don't hire a navigator who still believes the Earth is flat. Yet we continue to ask…

Can educational policymakers see if there’s other, perhaps equally important ways to assess the value of a child’s experience in the learning process beyond standardized tests?  With all of the recent questions and concerns regarding such testing, is there any way to see if students are prepared for their future beyond the numbers they receive from being excessively tested?  If we are looking for evidence of active engagement of learning that lasts a lifetime, you may want to search no…

Computers Grading Students’ Essays – Some Push-Back

Several people wrote letters to The New York Times in response to the article about computer grading of students’ essays (summarized in Marshall Memo 480). Here are excerpts from two of the letters:

• “Far from being grateful for ‘a break’ from grading papers, I am dismayed by the prospect of substituting the teacher-student interactions that are the heart of…