I’ve started a new Facebook page called Teachers Speak Up on Testing. This one is designed specifically to gather teachers’ and others’ thoughts on the standardized testing that is being expanded so widely across the country. How is it working or not working in your school? What aspects of teaching and learning do the tests […]

It can be really hard to get positive education stories into the big newspapers. But I’ve started a blog to publish great teacher stories on the Patch news website – at least from the Chicago area. If you haven’t checked out Patch, it’s a system with separate news sites for various local neighborhoods across the […]

Education and poverty add up to a social justice issue . That’s why I keep writing these posts and urging more teachers to speak up. Increases in U.S. childhood poverty by 4.5 million over 11 years are unconscionable, as the numbers are showing. Can education help? Studies by the Chicago Consortium on School Research show […]

It’s Memorial Day, when we honor fallen soldiers and eat barbecue. But we educators are never quite off duty, at least in our heads. So let’s celebrate teachers who ARE speaking up. First, harking back to Teacher Appreciation week, Janet Ilko, on the National Writing Project iAnthology, honored our Teachers Speak Up effort (Many thanks, […]

Dear TSU followers– I’ve been developing this website for nearly a year now. Lots of people tell me it’s great . However I haven’t seen it lead to many more teachers writing and publishing pieces that better inform the public about our work. Or if it has, then people aren’t telling me. Yes, I’ve shared […]

Wow! I’m stunned! Dozens of New York Teachers are writing to critique a new ELA test created by Pearson publishers. Their comments are posted at a new website created by Lucy Calkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Judging from the teachers’ copious reports and analyses (we counted 59 teacher responses plus a […]

on Teacher Appreciation Day, what better activity than to get parents, friends, community members, legislators, and others to learn from teachers about why they teach. So go to the Learning Matters website page on “Why I Teach,” and enjoy, add your own explanation — but also use Facebook, Twitter, email, and any other tool you […]

Here’s a blog post by Joey Starnes, a teacher who goes to Washington to make her voice heard there. And she keeps her blog going, as well, to talk to the world about education. I’m not sure how many people in the general public read such teacher blogs — but at least she’s putting her […]

More and more teachers are telling why they keep teaching. It looks like Beth Shaum’s video on her blog Use Your Outside Voice — which we featured on this site just yesterday — really struck a chord. Beth has received statements from a number of additional teachers & posted them. Here’s Collette Bennett’s way of […]

I don’t usually write more than one blog post per day. But I spent yesterday late afternoon with a wonderful group and I had better tell about it right now. After an intense day of teaching, a dozen teachers who research their classrooms to improve learning have gathered in a seminar sponsored by the Chicago […]