By Kristin

I admit, when my friend read this to me there was a moment – about when he read "Being an educator means that you are a part of the noblest profession … Quite frankly it takes a special person to be an educator," – that I started thinking of the bills I've paid this month and the bills I have yet to pay. Teachers are either noble or destroying children, it seems, and I think reality is that we're all in a middle ground. Am I noble if I'm tired of looking at essays instead of my daughters?  I don't think so.  Am I destroying children if I often put the grading down and read Go Dog, Go?  I don't think so.

But by the end, I admit it, I was inspired.  I love when I'm proven wrong.  This high school principal's essay got me where it counts when he wrote, "The educator that I just described … will … never fall victim to the bitterness."  "Ouch!" I thought.  I don't want to be that teacher!

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By Tom

In case you missed it, there was a wonderful article in the Seattle Times about Asa Mercer Middle School, named after the guy in the picture. Asa Mercer – the school, not the guy – went from being the poster child of woeful, inner-city education to one of the best schools in the Seattle School District. In only six years.

So how did Asa Mercer accomplish this turnaround?

A strong administrator, dedicated teachers focused on a common vision, good curriculum, a belief that every student can achieve and really hard work.

This is exactly what I found in the schools I visited last month in New York City. And although Mercer is a regular public school, they've found the same answer to the same problems as the charter schools I've visited. Not surprisingly, the principal at Mercer was a former teacher at a NYC charter school.

What this shows is that there's no secret to successful schools. Nor is there a shortcut.

It also shows what happens when we learn from what works – no matter where it's working – and apply it to other schools. 

Our students deserve no less.

By Mark

I am lucky enough to teach half of my work day in a program which provides my 45 English 9 students each with desktop computer for their using during my class time. We do research, write compositions, use tech toys like prezi and PowerPoint and animoto (and blogs), and we aim squarely for the kind of discerning 21st century multiliteracy that is all the rage, and supposedly the necessity.

I project my computer screen to help facilitate instruction from bell to bell. I use my doc cam and my smartboard. I keep my students informed on my class website where I post video clips, youtube links, prezi lectures, and assignment resources.

I tell myself that all this makes my life easier. I know that I'm lucky, of course, and I am not complaining, but I wonder about the role and place of technology in education. And I wonder if maybe I'm faced with too much of a good thing.

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By Tom

In my first of this three-part series I discussed the need to do something better in our most impoverished neighborhood schools. In the second post I described what I saw in several high-performing New York City charter schools. In this post I’m going to tackle the question of whether Washington State should allow charter schools.

This question has come up before. In fact, Washington has voted down charter schools three times so far, following high-profile campaigns which basically pitted pro-charter groups against the Washington Education Association, our state’s largest teachers’ union.

The union’s opposition to charter schools, as I understand it, boils down to this: charter schools take jobs from union members, they compete unfairly with traditional public schools, and they undermine those schools by “skimming off” the more motivated students from those schools.

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By Tamara

A couple of posts ago the issue of students and their families being ready for and knowing how to “do” school was raised. Working in a title school it is easy to see daily example of this lack of preparedness for school. Especially in the area of discipline. Like many title schools the discipline issue in my building has been an ongoing source of frustration for quite some time.

Our new principal has been working to tackle it with mixed results. She spoke to this in a staff meeting recently and her observations triggered an “aha moment” for me. She talked about how we as the adults expect these children to recognize the cause and effect relationship their behaviors and actions can trigger. Yet, my principal pointed out, few of our “repeat offenders” have any concept of cause and effect as it relates to their actions. At home it doesn’t matter what they do or don’t do, their needs (be they physical or emotional) continue to go unmet. It doesn’t matter if they behave/don’t behave, someone is going to continue to hit or hurt them. So when they get to school, she pointed out, our asking them to see their behavior and its consequences in the light of cause and effect has no meaning. So her approach whenever possible has been to use her time with that child to discuss recognizing cause and effect as a skill to manage their behavior and then send them back to class in order to practice that skill. My principal acknowledged that sending students back to class is often not what the teacher wants or needs. But she made a strong case by pointing out that these children need a place and opportunity to practice behavior management skills that they will not get at home. Like it or not, reality dictates we are that place.

After listening to my principal explain her approach to discipline in light of her observations led me to the conclusion that we are derelict in our duty to children if we do not point out cause and effect relationships in their behaviors and allow them to practice the skill of recognizing it, just as we would be derelict if we did not teach them the skills necessary for reading or computation. Is it time consuming? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. But until we can help them learn to manage themselves, neither they or the other children in class are going to learn academic skills or how to “do” life.

By Tom

Emerging from the subway tunnel in Harlem, I had two questions in my mind:

1. Were charter schools really as good as the hype, and if so, why?

2. Could they work in Washington?

I’ll address the first question in this post. I’ll discuss the next a little later this week.

Some background: I was invited earlier this month by the League of Education Voters to join a fact-finding tour of several charter schools in Harlem and The Bronx. Our goal was to learn about successful charter schools in order to inform the conversation about whether or not to allow them in Washington State.

After our breakfast at the New York City Charter School Center, a resource that helps start and sustain charter schools in New York City, we were toured Harlem Success Academy and Kappa International High School (not actually a charter school; more of a high-expectation “choice school”) On the following day we saw KIPP Charter School and Green Dot charter school.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of charter schools, I was determined to keep an open mind and see for myself what these places were all about. I had even done my homework: I read Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System as well as Steven Brill’s Class Warfare. (He loves charter schools; she doesn’t.)

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