BackboneAmerica

First week back in the classroom. Our new math teacher is fresh out of college and trained by Teach America. Our returning students aren’t (more…)

The Colorado Department of Education recently unveiled a new measuring tool and made its results available to the public. Without (more…)

There’s a controversy over the enrollment disparity of special education students in charter schools vis-a-vis district schools. (more…)

Talk big and you’d better prove up. After blogging recently about year-round school, I lamented to my principal that we help (more…)

The soon-to-be graduates marched into the World Arena in Colorado Springs while the organist played “Pomp and Circumstance” (more…)

May means seniors looking forward to impending graduation, and we teachers looking forward to no more of their “senoritis.” Maturity blooms (more…)

Cool: I now recruit as well as teach. At my urging, the mother of one of our previous students became a substitute teacher (more…)

Why does the performance of 16- and 17-year olds stagnate in both reading and mathematics, amid a 40-year trend of rising academic (more…)

There’s a personal angle when I read a story like the one today about 20 colleges and universities asking the federal government (more…)

Heckuva week with grades due, service learning for a day, new students, training, ACT planning, substitute plans, coffee with a school board (more…)

It is too obvious why Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Denver public schools this week: to boost Michael Bennet, (more…)

“Sticks and stones can break my bones and words can really hurt me!” That’s my update on the old schoolyard saying (more…)

(Hilton Head, SC – Mar. 25) Once at the Comedy Club, sitting up front, the comedian asked me why I wasn’t laughing. “I’ll laugh when you say (more…)

Maybe I need to eat my words, or at least nibble them, when the Denver Post now informs us the DPS board and superintendent support (more…)

Not only is March the time for CSAPs in Colorado, it is the time principals weed out their probationary teaching staff. Ouch. (more…)