Stop me if you have heard this before: People have complaints about standardized testing. This is not new. It is the same dance we see around this time every year, but this time it’s to a different song. All over the country schools, parents, and other stakeholders are crying foul over plans to go through…
The Chicago Teachers Union’s effort to go remote across the district is rooted in racism. Asking members to force a work stoppage without acknowledging the critical state of our babies is wrong. It ignores the fact that large numbers of children suffered the last time academically, physically and emotionally. Remote learning hurt Black and brown…
With skyrocketing COVID-19 cases causing disruptions to in-person learning around the country, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced plans to offer weary parents some real relief. In a press release, Ducey gave details about the new Open for Learning Recovery Benefit Program: The Governor is creating the Open for Learning Recovery Benefit program to provide relief…
It’s been an excellent year for school choice! 2021 has rightly been called a “breakthrough year” and “The Year of School Choice,” as 18 different states enacted seven new school choice programs and worked to expand 21 existing programs. And 2022 may prove to be even better! What’s really impressive is that school choice is…
When thousands of schools across the country closed their doors and went virtual for months due to COVID, Missouri’s Discovery Center of Springfield stepped up to meet the needs of families. “We weren’t going to let them become victims of the COVID slide,” executive director Rob Blevins told Springfield’s Fox 2 local affiliate. Instead, the…
If there is one thing we know for sure about this pandemic, it’s that interest in homeschooling has been on the rise as families search for a learning environment that meets all their childrens’ needs. In fact, the number of families choosing to homeschool has more than doubled since 2020! As families took control of…
As we enter the second winter of COVID, we know that cases will rise as people spend more time indoors and gather for the holidays. Even with extremely effective vaccines and booster doses widely available, and even though kids five years and older are now eligible to get the vaccine, elected officials and public health…
While adults in schools split hairs over what to call what just happened to young people during the pandemic—“learning loss” vs. “unfinished learning”—the students send us a very different message. Behavior is communication. And right now, national problems with student behavior in school communicate that adults are completely out of touch. In Oregon, a middle…
The continued killing of unarmed Black men by police has spurred action across the country. Some people are looking at how we fund law enforcement. Some people are looking at their own biases and participating in training about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Me? I’m looking at how we educate children of color. I’m the founder…
Just a glance at student attendance rates confirms what many have suspected for a while now: The pandemic had a profound impact on public school enrollment — and not in a good way. Across the country, enrollment in public schools declined by over a million students during the 2000-2021 school year. And this year enrollment…
Months after issuing a letter that called on President Biden to use federal agencies to stop “threats and acts of violence” at school board meetings, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is walking it back. It’s the latest update in a debacle that has been brewing since the letter’s publication last month, in which the…
In addition to the usual conversations that mark the beginning of the new school year, this year we’ve seen a lot of conversation about student learning loss that has happened during the pandemic. The powers that be have begun to move on from learning loss to what to sell do about it. It may be…
You’ll see headline after headline out there telling school districts how they should go about their reopening plans. Many are prudent and thought out by experts, but they’re missing some really important things: parent engagement, input, and approval. The Walton Family Foundation asked parents around the country what their priorities are for reopening schools this…
The latest numbers on public school enrollment last school year show that states lost more than 1 million students (Delaware and Illinois are not in the count, yet.). While the loss is concentrated in preK and kindergarten, which suggests families may have chosen to hold off on starting their young children in formal school, families…
Arianne Craig Jolla had the dream of teaching since she was in fourth grade. But after getting her bachelor’s in education, teaching wasn’t what she expected at all. School after school leadership pushed teachers to teach to the test and that just wasn’t working for students that lacked basic math and reading skills. After having…
We do the heavy lifting. We support our children. One speech from a teacher union leader will not make us forget their role in this entire year of educators’ abandonment of American children. Yesterday, AFT President Randi Weingarten gave a very motivational speech encouraging the nation about school reopening and reimagining education. Motivation is good,…
A year ago this month, schools across America made the well-meaning and appropriate decision to shutter their doors as an unknown, deadly virus swept our nation. As the year progressed, the decisions to keep schools closed were anything but well-meaning and appropriate—they were immoral and reckless. Those who have stood in the way of school…
My husband is a teacher. He’s back at work five days a week. My oldest son is a junior in college. They sent him home back in March, and already informed us they’ll be remote for the entire 2020-2021 academic year. My younger son is a junior in high school. He has opted for all…
I used to leave my phone at the front of the classroom in case of emergencies at home. Of course, I didn’t advertise its place there, but also of course, the students found it and would snag it during community time. They couldn’t access the contents—a teacher knows to keep everything locked down—but they could access the…
These past few weeks, I have been working from home while supervising my children, ages ten and twelve, as they work on the packets we downloaded from their school’s website. Back when my son was six years old, I homeschooled my son for a year. While that gave me a head start on adapting to…