Teachers can tell when they are effective. In my first year as a special education teacher in a pre-kindergarten setting, the signs were small but profound — a nonverbal student who started to greet me in the mornings, a student who didn’t know how to hold a pencil properly who learned to write full sentences […]
Alternative paths to teaching are essential to improving and diversifying the teaching force.
In a last-minute move before summer recess, Assemblymember Tony Thurmond gutted a bill, AB 1164, that was previously intended to provide childcare for foster youth. In its place, Thurmond proposed a new law to increase protections for the lowest performing teachers by giving them an easier path to lifetime employment. To make matters worse, the […]
Competition for success in the 21st-century economy is increasingly tied to an educated workforce with strong science, technology, engineering and math skills. Parents, community and business leaders, and policy makers trying to keep and grow jobs in California should be shocked that in just a few short years California has won the race to the […]
One parent thought teachers with emergency certificates had CPR training. Another heard the phrase “school climate” and thought her child’s school had a broken air-conditioning system. These are just a few of the misconceptions the Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit Learning Heroes has heard while trying to help parents understand the jargon-heavy education landscape at their children’s […]
Officials at the Sacramento City Unified School District took an international field trip to the Philippines this year – to hire teachers.