Tag Archives: teachers

How to evaluate a school district leader

In the heat of budget travails, as well as in more tranquil times, school board members and school administrators should remember that it is on the backs of teachers that the quality of an education system truly rests. Creating conditions that encourage teachers to do their finest work, and retaining the best teachers, should therefore […]

How can our education tax dollars best be spent ?

  The teacher is at the heart of a student’s learning experience at school. Research shows that excellent teachers impact the lives of students in many ways, from academic learning outcomes, to lifetime earning potential. It makes sense then to pay a lot of attention to what helps teachers do their best work. Speaking from […]

“School is boring!” Does it have to be?

I absolutely love thinking and learning about schools and students and I assume a lot of other teachers do too. Yet in my experience as a teacher I rarely have an opportunity to sit down in the context of my job with other equally charged teachers and talk and plan new programs and new curriculum and new approaches to […]

School Boards, Superintendents, Taxpayers Responsible for Creating Good Schools for All Children

The current public school system in Maine rewards teachers and administrators for working in schools with students from advantaged families. These professionals are paid more than their counterparts working in poorer districts. This is a result of our outdated funding system, which relies on local property taxes and sometimes philanthropy to cover much of the […]

Ask the Teachers

We think of public schools in rural areas and those in our nation’s inner cities as being two completely different animals, but in several crucial ways they are in fact remarkably similar. Both are generally staffed and funded in ways that favor the haves over the have-nots, and both share the considerable challenge of needing […]

Teachers Need a Seat at the Table

What’s the surest way of improving student performance in Maine’s troubled schools? Break down the bureaucratic chains that control what goes on and invite the teachers to the decision-making table. Amongst my teaching acquaintances I do not know many who report having been offered a legitimate seat at the table where the important programming decisions […]

The Need for Collaboration

Schools and school systems are arguably amongst the most complex social institutions we have, and this is why they are so hard to change. They involve the hopes, school histories, attitudes toward childhood, psychology, and learning assets and challenges of an enormous array of stakeholders. These stakeholders include the students themselves, their families, everyone who […]