This will be the final post in a series of Why I Had to Leave Education … for now. (Until something else sets me off.) When my nephew started third grade at my former school this past fall, my brother-in-law asked me, “What’s this ‘content class’ Joe keeps talking...
Today I give you a choice of blog posts. If you want something light-hearted and humorous, check out the guest post on first drafts I wrote for my agent, Sara Crowe, last week.If you’d rather have the Dark Post, continue reading here for my yearly diatribe on...
Are you sick of hearing me complain about standardized tests? My students are certainly sick of taking them. One of them even came to school yesterday in spite of having thrown up at home that morning. He held himself together just long enough to finish his test.If he...
Pennsylvania students are currently in the throes of their yearly state testing. The testing window is shorter than ever, with only 8 days to complete 6 tests and all make-ups due to absences. Fifth grade students get the pleasure of following that up with another 4...
The miserable weather has broken here in Pennsylvania, and April made a grand entrance with some truly gorgeous days! I also received the first professional review for We Hear the Dead on April 1, and it was no joke. Kirkus—the big, bad, difficult-to-please giant of...
Reading in today’s society tends to be a social activity. People share books, recommend them, discuss them, blog about them, and list them on virtual library sites. However, across the nation, NCLB requires states to test reading in isolation. Students must make sense...
