Like many places around the nation, the funding of education is a hot topic. Is funding adequate? Are the limited state / federal educational resources being allocated efficiently? How can a state budget be ‘rewritten’ to better meet the needs of education? Recently, a few state legislators looked at this issue and want to know what you think…
Author Archives: Richelle
Standards for ALL Beginning Teachers
Recently, there has been much written about teacher certification – and the different pathways that teachers can take to receive their initial (or advanced) certification. Here in our own blog, National Board Certification has even been highlighted. So, it was with great interest that I began to follow the Washington State Professional Educators Standards Board’s (PESB) discussion about teacher certification, especially online teacher certification.
Meme: Five Things Policymakers Ought to Know
Nancy Flanagan at teacher in a strange land started a meme, inviting others to share the five things that policymakers should know about one’s classroom (or school). While I started with a longer list, I settled on these 5 things, which are in no particular order…
1) Classrooms are not flat environments, with everyone learning and needing the same thing at the same time. This is important to keep in mind as policymakers want to create one curriculum for all students and/or one form of assessment intended to measure the learning for all kids. Having assessments embedded within each lesson in conjunction with high standards targets learning more effectively than the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Ikea Schools?
By Richelle
While reading a recent copy of the Economist, I stumbled onto an article that caught my attention – “A Swedish Model: A Swedish firm has worked out how to make money running free schools.” Hmm–making money running “publicly funded” schools? I had to read more as I wondered about the quality and support for such a model.
The Face of 2008
Many years ago, as Washington State set out to determine high school requirements for the graduating class of 2008, one face kept appearing at the forefront for me… Joe.
As an elementary student he struggled, which impacted every aspect of his life. Physically, Joe has hearing/ sight impairments, heart abnormalities, and a cleft palette. In addition, his family fell apart during his middle school years, resulting in his dad becoming imprisoned. Later, high school was marked by the loss of many friends through drugs, dropping out of school, and even death.
In short, Joe is like many of the students that we have in our classrooms. He seemed to struggle each day to make it through. As an advocate for special needs students, I often wondered what his future would look like. Would he be able to read? Write? Would he graduate from high school? Hold a job? All these questions would be answered one morning when Joe proclaimed to me that he was going to pass the state assessments to graduate from high school. AND he was determined to do it without any special accommodations!