The battle for vouchers begins. On January 23rd, Sen. Kelsey filed his bill to provide vouchers to 5,000 students (link via PostPolitics). The bill would do the following: provide “opportunity scholarships” to 5,000 low-income students in the bottom 10 percent…
There’s a young man at our school – let’s call him Dedric (his name has been changed for issues of privacy) – who has always been a good student. He made good grades in elementary and was Proficient last year…
Halfway through my second year of teaching, I found myself questioning whether or not this was a viable career for me. Despite the hours I put in at school and at home, my professional progress felt much slower than I…
Last week Arne Duncan gave a great speech to the National Assessment Governing Board Education Summit for Parent Leaders. In it he highlighted one of the most important things missing in our efforts to reform the American public education system, the…
Sixteen scholars entered our school in 6th grade this year as non-readers. Non-readers, meaning they did not even have a grasp on basic letter-sound correspondence. That’s over 15% of our population, which is consistent with what we saw last year.…
A new group has formed in Tennessee to advocate for student-centered education policy, calling themselves Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence. Their website outlines their plan to mobilize communities to advocate against education reform policies here in Tennessee and advocate for student centered…
Dorsey Hopson and Chris Barbic today issued a joint press release outlining their commitment to making Memphis, Tennessee Teacher Town USA. From the press release via Chalkbeat: Hopson and Barbic said they both fully support the over-arching goal of Teacher…
I wrote a few days ago about my concerns with the likely school voucher system proposal in Tennessee this legislative session. Vouchers are meant to increase school choice for low-income students and give them an alternative to traditional neighborhood schools. …
This is a great piece by Paul Thomas from Furman, a 31 year teaching veteran. He explains exactly why he believes the teacher voice must be included in the education reform debate if we are to have any hope of…
BCE is very excited about the new education reporting organization Chalkbeat, and we’re even more excited at the launch of their new site! If you haven’t heard of them, it’s worth your time to check out this video introducing them…
