Friends– As the year draws to a close I’ve been thinking about refocusing Teachers Speak Up. While I continue to believe that teachers need to re-brand our profession with the wider public, I haven’t had much success making that happen, even on a small scale.  Yes, people tell me the effort is important, and yes, […]

The latest PISA international test score comparisons are out, and they portray US education is pretty mediocre. According to the charts, we ranked 20th among other countries in reading, 30th in math, and 23rd in science. As parents, community members, politicians, and education critics begin asking about these numbers, we teachers need to be well […]

While it may have been a quiet holiday for most of us, the Illinois state legislature was busy readying a vote to reduce pensions for teachers and state employees, as a way to address the under-funding of the pension system. Of course, no one seems to talk about the legislature’s habit of skipping required payments […]

I’ve gathered a group of articulate educators for a session on helping teachers connect with communities at NCTE next week.If you are attending the convention, we hope you attend — it’s session F55, Saturday, Nov. 23, 8:00-9:15 AM. Peter Smagorinsky will be our featured speaker. He has written portraits of many outstanding teachers and had […]

The Courageous Teacher Responds to Governor Christie OK, people! If you haven’t already seen it, here’s how the teacher herself — the one who had Governor Chris Christie yelling in her face — responded in a letter on her blog. (Incidentally, if he was one of her students, what would be the consequence of such […]

Watching the news lately? Seeing/hearing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie yell at a teacher  and say all teachers want is more money? NJ school spending has increased, he argues. She then writes to him on a blog, “You have portrayed us as greedy, lazy, money-draining public servants that do nothing. I invite you to come […]

If your swamped with your own teaching responsibilities, you might not have followed some of the news — for example the latest chapter in how teacher voice has made a difference in New York, where new state tests have had a disastrous roll-out. First, check out some of the thousand responses that Lucy Calkins received […]

So there are more and more voices calling for teacher voice to be heard by the public and policy-makers. The latest is blogger K Michelle McGlothen in an ASCD post today. I’m heartened to hear more people urging this. What troubles me, though, is that just us advocates saying it should happen doesn’t necessarily make […]

Thank goodness I’m not alone trying to get teachers writing about their work for the larger community. Peter Smagorinsky, at the University of Georgia, provides another voice urging teachers to speak out. Visit the website “Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care” to read his suggestions on getting your words out there. Peter describes how he […]

Dear Friends and Followers– The TEDx event I organized, which took place Sept. 28, was so much work that I had to just let some things go for a couple of months until it was over. Then I skipped town for a few weeks to rest up. And now at last Teachers Speak Up is […]