Promote Community to Combat Chronic Absenteeism, Not Bribes
These ongoing unsettled times keep impacting our collective well-being and taking a big toll on many of our kids, too. After long-endured remote instruction, masking, and isolation, the “new normal” arrived. Up now: “norm erosion” to explain what’s behind the 14...
Chronic Absenteeism: A Schooling Crisis
Education seems to matter more than ever, now taking center-stage--and not just about money matters. No; take for instance, the page one, above-the-fold USA Today June 12, bold-faced headline that read, “Classroom Scourge: Chronic Absenteeism.” Spot on… Since 2018,...
William Shakespeare + Sir Edward Elgar = The Graduation March
The Chorus: “Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider shall thy bonds be set. God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet. God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.” Lyrics by poet,...
America’s Schools 2024: Troubling Money Issues, Test Scores, and Teacher Shortages
The national debt is closing in on $35 trillion--up $8 trillion in just the last three years. Now add in the annual interest on those trillions, a whopping $659 billion just last year. However, none of that has slowed the government’s ongoing spending spree, which,...
School-Wise News Short Takes
On the horizon: Linguistic Fingerprinting “to determine whether a text has been written by a specific person based on an analysis of their previous writings,” writes Ed Surge’s Jeffrey Young. (Akin to fingerprinting except related to the way we write.) As of February...
Grade Inflation = Low Expectations & Unintended Consequences
Grades, oh, my God, grades, the bane of my schooling years, as I followed along in the wake of my smart, “A” student, big sister and never measured up. What's more, my middle school principal got to know me much too well because, not only did my grades disappoint,...
The Self-Esteem Movement’s Leavings
Self-esteem talk got its start way back in the mid-1700’s with the writings of Scottish philosopher David Hume in which he emphasized the importance of self-worth in the quest to attain one’s full potential. Moving forward, in 1890, American philosopher and...
Depersonalized Teaching Gaining Traction in Our K-12 Schools
In the news of late: TikTok under fire, with the U.S. House of Representatives, in March, approving a bi-partisan bill that would force its parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the app or be banned on all of our devices. As noted by Ryan Lovelace of The...
For Better or Worse, Artificial Intelligence Starts Making Its Way into America’s Classrooms
Somehow, we’ve gone from artificial flowers and sweeteners to artificial thinking, calculating, and learning. Heady stuff, no? And very brave new world, even otherworldly. For many, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is also scary, the stuff of science fiction, which,...
Seeing Red on Red-Wearing Valentine’s Day
“The heart gets quiet when it gets listened to.” ~ author unknown Whether to impress, reassure, or simply shout it from the rooftops, 52% of us will honor Valentine’s Day by spending, on average, a whopping $192 on gifts. In fact, about 30% of us will spend so...
Writing Beats Keyboarding; Printed Text Beats Digital Text, And Yet…
The Associated Press’s Collin Binkley reports that, “Congress gave schools a record $190 billion but didn’t require them to publicly report individualized purchases…, and the full scope of the spending is unknown.” An Edtech Evidence Exchange analysis says, “The U.S....
Charles Osgood and The Pretty Good Student
Ninety-one years of living and leaving behind a wife of 50 years and five kids. Not too shabby, as they say, and the accolades keep coming in. In the case of Charles Osgood, all well deserved. A CBS newsman for 45 years, he stood tall among journalists for his...
Wonderment…
It took 700 days, but here in the Philly area, it finally snowed on Tuesday. Supermarket cash registers hummed, schools closed, and sledding made a comeback. Today, Friday of the same week and around 5 o’clock this morning, the white, fluffy stuff started falling...
You Got Rizz? You Authentic? Numbers Your Thing?
A New Year, a New Word of the Year, Well, Actually Three… The first Word of the Year comes from dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster. Its choice, made after “searches on the company’s website and on world events” is authentic. Says the company’s editor Peter...
2024 New Year Resolutions: Yes? No?
“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better person.” ~ Benjamin Franklin It’s the first day of a whole new year, so will you be first stepping into 2024 with self-help promises in mind? After all,...
Hooked by Design on Social Media
They did it on purpose right from Facebook’s start back in 2004, designing algorithms that would keep kids repeatedly coming back for more, addicting them to social media: 35% of U.S. teens report “almost constant” use of social media platforms 42% of U.S. teens...
“You Can’t Buy Love, But You Can Rescue It”
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~ Anatole France, 1921 Nobel Laureate For the fifth year, Subaru's National#MakeADog’sDay, October 22, once again "shines the spotlight on hard-to-adopt dogs—the older, deaf, blind, and...
A School-Wise Start-of-Fall Update
Ah, change; am not very good at it, but here we go anyway, as summer loosens its grip, the sun moves into Libra, and fall officially arrives tomorrow, September 23. Officially called the autumnal equinox, it’s one of the only two times a year that the earth’s axis...
Civics Knowledge by the Numbers as the Constitution Turns 236 on 9/17
“If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.” ~ ~ Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the 3rd president of the United States Of Note: On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),...
2023’s Changing Face of America’s Public Schools
Of Note: This week The New York Times published the Opinion piece, “We Can Only Fight Learning Loss with Accountability.” In it, Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, writes “The bad...