Blog

Nov. 11, 2024

"Love Across Party Lines: How Our 22-Year Relationship Survives Political Differences"

Today, I'm sharing a story that's giving Romeo and Juliet a run for their money—minus the tragic ending and theatrical teen drama. Instead of Montagues versus Capulets, it's Democrats versus Republicans—in my house. And let me tell you, …

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Sept. 25, 2024

What Does State Testing Test Anyway?

Why do we send our children to school? To learn stuff?  What stuff? Who decides which “stuff” is important and which can be set aside? How do we know they learned this stuff? In the long past, education meant learning which plants w…

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Sept. 25, 2024

“F” for Failing -- Grading Grades

First, this is just my opinion—for what that's worth, it’s the opinion of someone who’s been in the classroom for 33 years. I don’t know how students view grades in elementary school, but I get the feeling that parents are mo…

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Sept. 25, 2024

Why Bother to Become a Teacher!

Go search on Google “number of new teachers who quit,” and you’ll find pages and pages (115,000,000 results in the search I did) of statistics that all read about the same: “Close to half of the teachers with five or fewer ye…

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Sept. 7, 2024

Retaining Third Graders Who Can't Read is the Solution

    A recent article in “The 74” caught my attention this week. It discussed how Tennessee and Michigan are currently debating removing the statute regarding retaining third graders who can't read at grade level to be retai…

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