students already "want to know things." It is school that marginalizes the natural curiosity our kids enter school with. I watch my own children at home pursue learning (not related to required school work) with pure delight and tenacity. They try and try and try never feeling that their failures are wasted time or a judgment on their value as human beings. Instead, their curiosity piqued, they dive right in and learn.

School is not a place for curiosity, not a place for diving right in. It is a place were everything is prescribed, learning defined, and judgment made. The goal of school is like tracing - if the student can render an exact replica of the original they pass, they are lauded, they become the valedictorian . . . what they can't do is create, innovate, and as Ms Michlewitz accurately points out, can't formulate an independent thought or engineer a persuasive argument. They have been taught not to do that . . . much to this country's detriment.

a well-crafted website with a thoughtful teacher acting as a curator to the links can produce a body of knowledge superior to textbooks.

Training of at least nine to 16 hours on the use of computers for instruction, reading instruction, and student discipline all declined notably, while training of up to eight hours in those areas shot up. That could be a sign that teachers are back in the infamous and much-maligned one-shot workshops. (Time spent on P.D. in teachers' own content area improved slightly over this time period.)

That finding is particularly discouraging given two other studies on professional development. One analysis of nine rigorous scientific studies, released in 2007, found that professional development with fewer than 14 hours of training had no statistically significant effect on student achievement, in comparison to those with at least 30 hours.

And this study's first report found that teachers in high-performing countries generally spend less time on instruction and much more time each week meeting, planning, and constructing lessons with other teachers.

A bunch of things I think teacher librarians should unlearn:

1. That the little things really matter to those we serve and teach.  (For instance, whether or not we decide to shelve Mc and Mac together.)
2. That Boolean logic is the best search strategy since sliced bread.
3. That Wikipedia is bad or less-than-good in all contexts.
4. That databases are the only online sources with value.
5. That having a web presence, no–that having a really good and really useful web presence, is optional.
6. That someone else is exclusively or ultimately responsible for learning relating to information and communication and search technologies.
7. That the price initially quoted is the price you have to pay. (Thanks, Mom!)
8. That issues relating to Fair Use are generally going to be answered with the word no.
9. That no really means no when it comes to issues relating to access to the information and communication tools of today and intellectual freedom.
10. That libraries should be quiet.
11. That libraries should be neat.
12. That a library’s effectiveness and impact should be measured by the number of books it circulates.
13. That your stakeholders automatically will know what you contribute to your school’s culture.
14. That a library is merely a place to get stuff.
15. That your collection should be just-in-case rather than just-in-time.
16. That someone else is responsible for your professional development.
17. That ubiquity won’t change your practice profoundly.
18. That your library is bounded by four walls.
19. That your library is open from 8 AM to 3 PM.

Ooh... I like this list too! (see preceding post for another one)

if we haven't defined the teachers' knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed to successfully support a different technology-enriched learning environment, how can we provide a preservice teaching program to address these needs?

A Teacher Education program needs to identify what skills and tools need to be mastered to effectively work in a 1-to-1 learning environment and then they need to teach/use those methods in the classes they teach.  It's as simple as that.

school districts should start randomly assigning some of their students to teachers and gathering lots of information about them as a matter of course, on the theory that we very likely can’t predict what the most salient public policy issues will be at the future point when long-term impacts can be estimated. The few randomized control trials that exist continue to be enormously influential

You could argue that it’s the teachers’ turn to absorb some of the pain that they have been spared to date

attending school turned into a thing that we students HAD to do instead of something we wanted to do; much like taking out the trash or staying home on a Friday night

Is a 20 plus year teacher 62 percent better than a teacher with ten years of experience—or do unions, in their negotiations with school districts, sell out the young teachers for their own purposes?

The Texas Board of Education proposed...

Calling the country’s slave trade the "Atlantic triangular trade." That refers to the trade system that included the American colonies, Europe and Africa, which, if drawn on a map with arrows from place to place, certainly looks like a triangle. The proposal is correct on the geometric merits.

On historical and moral merits, however, it fails miserably. Trying to whitewash the country’s ugly past is itself ugly, and dangerous.

This proposal was approved and then later rescinded.

K-12 school districts that lay off teachers by seniority, a policy known as “last in, first out,” disproportionately affect the programs and students in their poorer and more minority schools than in their wealthier, less minority counterparts.

Change is needed because our students are facing a world in which local business now occurs globally, technology breaks down old barriers, and information is infinite

Many, if not most, of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom.

if we held the status quo to anything like the standards critics are holding Race to the Top to, the status quo would be finished.

The reforms of the last 50 to 60 years haven't been able to shake the education system out of its stagnant condition

They’re telling you with their mistakes what you as the teacher are doing wrong. . . . you need to look at their mistakes for qualitative information about what you need to change in your instruction to teach it right.

Our students need to graduate with skills that cannot be shipped overseas.

It's absurd to look at a three year old toddler and say, "this kid can't read or do math or even string together a coherent paragraph. He's a dolt and he's never going to amount to anything." No, we don't say that because we know we can teach and motivate and cajole the typical kid to be able to do all of these things.

Why is it okay, then, to look at a teenager and say, "this kid will never be a leader, never run a significant organization, never save a life, never inspire or create..."

Great question, isn't it?

Iowa has had a decline in public school enrollment for 13 straight years, according to the state’s department of education, and 234 districts out of 361 are smaller this year than last. Also, 46 percent of districts in 2008-09 had fewer than 600 students.

We need assessments that gauge students' understanding and require them to demonstrate what they know, not tests that allow students to rely solely on guessing and picking one among four canned answers.

Every librarian and their staff received pink slips in our district," said Susan Hernandez, president of the Pasadena High School Parent, Teacher and Student Association. "How does a school function without a library?

why are we still so keen on having our students memorize facts when we have no idea whether they can develop informed points of view of what those facts meant, mean or might mean to the future. Why are we using one dimensional textbooks when the stories we wish to tell can be brought to life with the multi-media experiences available to anyone with a modem and a computer? Especially, since the textbooks are coming out of Texas which wants our students to believe that evolution is a theory like creationism and that the civil rights movement created unrealistic expectations for minorities. Do we really want to codify that kind of thinking?

this article offers a good example of what so many school reformers (and journalists) get wrong:  They assume that “good teaching” consists of disgorging information to students.  The only challenge, then, is to become more skillful at “getting and holding the floor,” making kids do whatever they’re told, and avoid “veer[ing] away from the lesson plans.”  The nightmare scenario from this perspective is one where “the kids are running the classroom.”

Notice that this kind of instruction does nothing to help children think critically, understand ideas, or (heaven knows) become excited about learning.  Notice, too, that it’s an approach mostly applied to poor kids of color.  As Jonathan Kozol has observed, “Children of the suburbs learn to interrogate reality,” while “inner-city kids are trained for nonreflective acquiescence.”

In teachers' lounges, I've heard teachers complain about kids who are poor and disadvantaged. But I've also heard other teachers complain about those who are spoiled and overly advantaged.

Why? Because that's what teachers do. They complain. They can't help it. It's in their professional DNA. Everything is always someone else's fault. They never want to accept responsibility for kids who drop out of school but they're the first in line to claim credit for the kids who wind up in the Ivy League.

"These layoffs are wrong, and these layoffs are toxic to children," ACLU lawyer Mark Rosenbaum said.

The organization has filed a lawsuit alleging that the teacher layoffs constitute a violation of the constitutional rights of inner city students to an education.

Attorney Catherine Lhaman, who also is working on the lawsuit, said, "There is something profoundly wrong when children in some schools lose two-thirds of their teachers while children in other schools get to keep all their teachers and continue learning in a stable educational environment."

“I consider myself a union supporter, but I don’t support the seniority system,” said Lynnell Mickelsen of Minneapolis, who is organizing a community group to oppose the main use of seniority in layoffs.

In a shrinking school system, which has resulted in the loss of 1,300 teacher jobs since 2001, “terrific teachers have been laid off, and [some of those remaining] are depressingly, relentlessly mediocre,” Ms. Mickelsen said. “People are so frustrated about this.”

The underlying issue is that teacher pay bears no relation to teacher effectiveness

Joanne also says, "Veteran teachers are attractive targets for cost cutters because they earn so much more than new teachers. A top-scale teacher may earn twice as much as an entry-level teacher - but not be anywhere near twice as good."

Ask leaders what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. In a recent survey we invited more than 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant: recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals. “Recognition for good work (either public or private)” came out number one.

Unfortunately, those managers are wrong.

Having just completed a multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last. It’s progress. On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

And, of course, many educators in many schools feel that they are making little to no progress...

Imagine the following HS requirements being recommend to the School Board:
• 3 years of economics and business
• 2 courses in philosophy – one in logic, the other in ethics
• 2 years of psychology, with special emphasis on child development and family relations
• 2 years of mathematics, focusing on probability and statistics
• 4 years of Language Arts, but with a major focus on semiotics and oral proficiency
• US and World history, taught as Current Events - backwards from the present
• 1 Year of Graphics Design, Desktop Publishing, and Multimedia presentation

Outrageous? Hardly – if we do an analysis of what most graduates actually need and will use in professional, civic, and personal life. How odd it is that we do not require oral proficiency when every graduate will need the ability. How absurd it is in this day and age that students aren’t required to understand the capitalist system. How sad it is that physics is viewed as more important than psychology, as parents struggle to raise children wisely and families work hard to understand one another. Requirements based on pre-modern academic priorities and schooling predicated on the old view that few people would graduate and fewer still would go on to college make no sense. Ask any adult: how much algebra did you use this past week?