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 […]

OK, let’s get serious and look at some numbers. I’m in the Chicago metro area, so I’ll focus on Illinois. A national study shows Illinois is the second worst state in the union for funding disparity between high and low poverty-level schools. This partly results from shortfalls in state aid to schools. In recent years, […]

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 […]

Readers, please take a look at this powerful, great video on why teachers stay with the job, made by teacher Beth Shaum. Then visit her blog, Use Your Outside Voice. And now, if you’re a teacher, ask yourself: wouldn’t it be wise to take just a few minutes each week — in spite of the […]

Here’s our friend Janet Ilko asking teachers to tell the public what matters in school so that we can get beyond all the standardized testing. More and more teachers are wringing their hands about the irrelevancy of the tests and all the time consumed with prepping kids for them and giving them. But as Janet […]

It’s encouraging to hear of more and more teachers advocating and making their voices heard. Here are two fresh examples, one national and one local. The national item is the “Occupy the Department of Education 2.0” event that just took place in Washington D.C., organized by the new Network for Public Education. The report on […]

We’ve already said we’re fans of Megan Allen, Hillsborough County fifth grade teacher who has spoken up to Congress and other public officials. Now read her advice on finding your inner teacher leader, your courage to speak up publicly to advance teachers’ voices in public education policy decisions. Ms Allen, it turns out, is active […]

The wider public, being less connected to schools than we teachers are, tends to have some limited concepts of our work and how to improve it. But in some fascinating and extremely helpful research the FrameWorks Institute provides smart advice on how to talk about education with the wider public. General attitudes about schools differ […]

There are hundreds of ways to make education more meaningful that teachers and community members are pursuing– and the public needs to hear more about them. Here are two very different initiatives featured today at Education Week – Teacher. In Washington DC, the Young Playwright’s Theater Program partners with schools, enabling students to write and […]

So today I browsed through a number of TED talks on education. Many start from the premise that “the system is broken.” But then I came upon the uplifting TED talk by 4th grade teacher John Hunter, on “Teaching with the World Peace Game.” Now he may seem like a superstar — which can mislead […]