Tag Archives: teacher evaluation

The Biggest Elephant in the Schoolhouse: Poverty

Among wealthy reformers and others who have little experience with the reality of a classroom it has become sexy to blame teachers for the low test scores some students achieve in school. Teachers are apparently lazy, working for payday, uninspired, just needing a kick in the pants in order to produce better student testing outcomes. […]

Governor LePage Should Go Back to School

Governor LePage should go back to school. If he did, he would learn that slinging provocative statements about without bothering to cite any evidence at all would earn him failing grades in our schools in Maine. We have higher standards than that. Seth Koenig, of the Bangor Daily News, reports LePage as having stated that […]

Standardized testing can impoverish children’s education

The testing culture that drives current educational decision-making in our schools impoverishes children in many ways. One of the external forces interfering with student learning is time stolen from teaching.  A middle school colleague in Maine recently told me she literally lost five weeks of instructional time each year to standardized testing. In a system where […]

Ipads and Headphones and Schools, Oh My!

Let’s say it again: America’s schools have some serious problems. Pundits and policy makers tackle these problems from the top down. They  assume change will eventually trickle its way into the classrooms of actual children and improve the education they get. I think change need not wait for the trickle-down improvements to finally take hold. […]

Many of the Best Teachers Leave the Profession

Once again I find myself thinking about why teachers leave the profession.  This week I am in Waterville, Maine, attending an institute on Maine School Law. I am deeply impressed with the caliber of the teachers I am with, which is often the case when I spend time pursuing further training, especially during vacation periods, […]