Student loans are back in the headlines as a result of some recent political wrangling.
Archive for the ‘Conversation Starter’ Category
College Loans and High Schools
May 6th, 2012
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Miss School and Miss Out
January 11th, 2012
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Four Days Make a School Weak
September 13th, 2011
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by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader On August 31 “NBC Nightly News” Brian Williams moved into a commercial break with a tease of his next segment. “As more and more school districts are moving to a four-day week, parents are asking, ‘What are we supposed to do with our kids on that extra day?’.” While [...]
9/11: What was it like to be a principal on that day?
September 10th, 2011
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Principals and teachers working in diverse, high-poverty schools are constantly challenged, even on a normal school day. In addition to the need to raise the achievement of each and every one of our students, our school had to overcome a number of externally imposed challenges. In fact, our teachers designed a t-shirt to commemorate our [...]
PLN: Your Customized Learning Plan
September 8th, 2011
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Create your own Personal Learning Network (PLN) by tapping into the collective intelligence of hundreds or even thousands of your fellow educators through Twitter and other technologies. Find out how to establish a PLN that’s made up of the right people to guide your learning and to whom you contribute your knowledge and expertise. (Read [...]
A High Tolerance: Late Start Dates Hurt College-Bound Students
September 7th, 2011
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A late school start aimed at tourism revenue undermines the efforts of college-bound students and parents. After a friend of mine personally witnessed the horrific traffic in the Washington, D.C. area, he said, “the people here must have a really high tolerance for this craziness.”
Ninth Graders: Still Overwhelmed?
September 6th, 2011
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“It’s a huge transition. They come in at 14 and they leave as adults.” Ninth Grade-Our Last Chance I learned from experience that a successful ninth grade experience predicted future high school success. Conversely, I learned that when students struggled in ninth grade, they rarely graduated.
In Testing Perfection Can be the Enemy of the Good
August 30th, 2011
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by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was first presented in the early years of the Bush Administration it represented a significant shift in educational policy. End-of-course exams like Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) were soon to become a measure of a school’s success. The initial requirement of a 70% [...]
Jeopardizing Math Education
July 25th, 2011
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by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader I am starting to feel like many educational leaders are approaching the instruction of math as if it were a game of “Jeopardy”. “Bill, it’s your turn to choose.” “Alex, I’d like to move to ‘Math Solutions’ for 200.” “Starting a new category, the answer is…‘8th [...]
Is 8th Grade Algebra All Show, No Go?
July 14th, 2011
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A while back, I was having a conversation with a member of our school community lamenting the fact that no one every bothered to check to see if the school programs in place were actually working for our neediest students. She looked at me quizzically and replied, "Mel, you don’t get it. This is the [...]
