The Case for Keeping Students With the Same Teacher Next Year

The months after spring break are usually the time when teachers in every school across America look forward to crystallizing an entire year’s worth of…

Love in a Time of Distance Learning

As an inexperienced special education teacher, I vividly recall hearing the shouting nearby. I raced down the hall, fearful of an incident brewing. Standing there was…

I Think This Remote Learning Thing Can Actually Work. Here Are 3 Tips.

I’ve seen a number of articles in recent days about whether schools and parents should prioritize remote learning while schools are closed. As a former…

More Than Anything, I #LoveTeaching for the Relationships We Build Along the Way

When I divulge to strangers that I am a high school English teacher, I am typically met with skepticism. “You teach teenage brats all day?…

Our Students Have Incredible Power. Let’s Teach Them to Use It Well.

Juan moved to California from Central America last year. When he first began school, he couldn’t recite numbers in English and could only count to…

Our Students Don’t Need to Be ‘Fixed,’ But We Can Heal Together

I’m sitting in my classroom, hunched low in my comfortable teacher chair. The lights are off. I’m rubbing my eyes and my temples in an…

This Is Where I Convince You to Become a Mentor for a Young Person in Your Community

Toward the end of last year, my colleagues were writing wrap-ups to the decade and providing strong analysis of what had been won or lost…

I Will Never Again Teach at a School Without Dedicated Mentoring Time for Students

For many educators, January is a time to return to our jobs revived and renewed after the holiday season. For teachers at Rhodes Junior High…

We May Finally Know What It Takes to Improve Schools

WHAT WE GOT RIGHT: When we think about school improvement efforts across the United States, it’s easy to tick off the spectacular, big-budget failures. Yet, while these boondoggles made headlines and dominated air time among policy wonks, a smaller, quieter and more sustainable set of successes began teaching the field some guiding principles for improving schools.…

Not Everything Of Value in Education Can Be Captured By a Number

WHAT WE GOT RIGHT: In trying to capture the story of a decade in education, the temptation is to focus entirely on what can be quantified, from test scores to funding. In looking at these numbers, it can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing exclusively on what has gone wrong in schools.…