Every time I go out to observe one of our music student teachers, I come away thinking three things… 1. These new music teachers are really, really good. Much better than I was just coming out of school. More musically versatile, more aware of the profession, so passionate about teaching kids about music. In spite of the doom & gloom […]

Now Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants to pay “good” teachers $100+K. With workers’ wages stagnating, and teachers being historically underpaid, how is this not great news? Don’t teachers deserve bigger paychecks? Who would turn down a 6-figure salary?!? Well, as always, the devil is in the details… For instance, who will determine who the “good” teachers are? Their principals? School […]

You can listen to Mitchell Robinson read and discuss this now-viral essay here: https://www.eclectablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Mitchell-Robinson-Stop-with-the-heartwarming-teacher-stories.mp3 It seems like every day now we see another one of these stories that are supposed to be “heartwarming,” or show how “dedicated” teachers and other school personnel are… this superintendent spent 90 hours per week this summer repainting his school to save $150,000! this teacher […]

“Achievement School Districts” are a recent phenomenon in the corporate education reform movement. These “school districts” are designed to guarantee “rapid improvement in the state’s low performing schools”, although specific methods, techniques and strategies to accomplish this goal are rarely mentioned. ASDs have sprung up all across the nation, under various names and guises, from the “Education Achievement Authority” in […]

If we can afford to give the Kochs $1 billion a year, maybe your kid’s teacher shouldn’t have to drive an Uber at night Around 125 teachers and their supporters marched from Oklahoma City to Tulsa this week to demand the state restore funds to the state’s starved schools. The Guardian’s Mike Elk reported that the marchers were met with […]

To save you from having to read this claptrap, I’m going to share the gist of a new “report” on teacher preparation programs from David Bergeron & Michael Dannenberg. Who the heck are these guys, you might ask? Well, our friend and Highly Effective Curmudgeon, Peter Greene, fills us in on their “credentials,” and it’s pretty much what we expected–they […]

If you’ve been watching the ever-increasing demonization of teachers in Michigan over the past decade, you probably have asked yourself at one time or another, “Why the hell would ANYONE want to be a teacher in Michigan?” It’s a fair question. Republicans in our state legislature have cut their benefits, based their advancement on student progress when much of what […]

It’s becoming an all too familiar news story in Michigan these days: A “failing” public school system faces “competition” from a charter school that sucks even more resources and students away from the traditional schools and then, when they can’t make enough money, the charter school closes and things are worse off than they were before. For example, it happened […]

I’ve been working on teacher evaluation for most of my career as a teacher, administrator, and teacher educator; first being evaluated, then doing the evaluation as an assistant principal and subject area coordinator, then helping design a state-wide beginning teacher evaluation initiative. After nearly 40 years in education, all I can say is that the current system is the worst […]

Since publishing my post on teacher silencing yesterday, my mailbox has been inundated with stories from teachers about being harassed, threatened, and intimidated by school district administrators for posting their opinions about standardized tests, opting out, and other issues of education policy and practice. One teacher wrote: I was having a discussion this morning with a colleague and we weren’t […]

My son asked me today on the ride home from his after school jazz band practice if it ever bothered me that persons with less education than I had made more money–a lot more money–than I did. “That’s an easy one,” I told him. “No. Because how much money someone makes has nothing to do with their value in this […]