Month: <span>September 2010</span>

No leader left behind

The former president who gave us the No Testing Opportunity Left Behind Act is now lending his name to another education initiative, this one allegedly designed to improve the crop of principals heading our public schools. Former First Lady Laura Bush unveiled the program yesterday in Dallas. The Alliance to Reform Educational Leadership, as it […]

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Longer school year? Not now.

Emerging from the fog (and house arrest) of a cold, I notice that the most recent U.S. president aspiring to be SchoolSuperintendentinChief thinks it would be a dandy idea to lengthen the school year. Without debating the educational value (if any) of the president’s proposal, it is safe to assure the school kids of Texas […]

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Public schools are…public

Public schools – the backbone of our state’s educational system – are just that, public, offering opportunities to millions of kids, regardless of family income – or lack thereof. We all know that, right? Right. But I get a little concerned (annoyed may be more accurate) every time someone in officialdom starts comparing the public […]

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No merit in merit pay

I am not sure who came up with the concept of merit pay for teachers, but I suspect it wasn’t a teacher. More than likely it was a collection of selfanointed education “experts” who haven’t set foot in a classroom – except for maybe a few photo ops – since their own graduation days. Those […]

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