SAT scores are way up this year, the College Board reported this week. And that might be cause for celebration, if you wanted to ignore these three facts. The test is easier than it was a year ago. The achievement gap between students of different races and parental education levels is just as entrenched as ever. And fewer than half… Read more →
If you want a peek at where our educational priorities might land in about 10 years, take a look at this poll. Here are a few hot-button findings that jump out from “Education in America: The Views of Millennials:” Millennials support school choice, both charters and vouchers, especially if the vouchers help low-income families afford private school. Millennials think there… Read more →
School reform advocate Derrell Bradford and policy writer Andy Rotherham hit on it. Illinois education writer Tracy Dell’Angela has a blog focused on it. Teacher/education writer Robert Pondiscio said it was a factor in the anti-charter vote in Massachusetts last fall. And former Education Secretary Arne Duncan famously broached the subject in 2013. “It” is the long overdue conversation about… Read more →
Race and class alike factored into how teachers treated me when I attended Evanston schools, and I’m sure they continue to factor into how teachers treat students today. While giving families the support they need to help their children succeed in Evanston schools is commendable, placing the onus mostly on black families to close the achievement gap misses the point.… Read more →
This is the second part of a four-part series on the writer’s experience and research on the achievement gap in her hometown of Evanston, Illinois, a diverse suburb north of Chicago and home to Northwestern University. Read Part 1 here. Evanston formally and voluntarily desegregated its schools in 1966, but a persistent achievement gap has divided black and white students… Read more →
This is the first part of a four-part series on the writer’s experience and research on the achievement gap in her hometown of Evanston, Illinois, a diverse suburb north of Chicago and home to Northwestern University. One day when I was in second grade, my mother approached me with an envelope in hand. Wordless, she glared at me, and I… Read more →
People loosely use the term “good schools and diversity” without looking into it or researching what that means. When you get below the surface, it means achievement for the white kids, but not for everybody else. That’s not good enough for me. Currently, my husband and I live in Broadview, a western suburb of Chicago, with our two daughters. Our… Read more →
I’m about to complete my 25th year as a high school teacher. I could be finishing out my career by lying low and coasting on the same lesson plans and methods I’ve always used—but I’m not. Instead, I’m finishing year three of creating a classroom that is in step with the ever-developing technological advancements of the 21st century by personalizing… Read more →
We all hold up Massachusetts as the gold standard in K-12 education and in many ways, it is. (I even wrote a blog entitled, “Be Like Mass.”) The state where public education got its start tops the rankings year after year and was a pioneer in reform long before most other states shook off the cobwebs and started making needed changes to… Read more →
Cierra Ford came to dread the inevitable question asked of all high school seniors this time of year: “Where are you going to college?” It got to the point in which she would just rattle off the names of a few colleges she never even considered, just to appease the well-meaning adults in her life who assume every bright senior… Read more →