This past week I was in Washington to talk with colleagues and friends about the upcoming debates over NCLB.  While I enjoy the city and my friends, it was great to get back to my school just in time for Friday—one of my favorite days.  And it has nothing to do with it being the day before the weekend.

Every other Friday my staff and I meet for what we call ‘planning period meetings’.  Since we are on a semester schedule with long periods this means we have about an hour to talk about our shared work.  During the first semester of the year we read a book together and discuss it.  In the second semester we take on a protocol called ‘looking at student work.’

(Previously published on Valerie Strauss' blog, "The Answer Sheet," in the Washington Post.) 

Years ago, I learned that if you want to communicate with people, it’s best to avoid jargon.

It was my fourth year as principal, and I’d decided to add a portfolio requirement for graduation. After two years of study, meetings, and hearings, we were ready to move forward and decided to share the plan with the entire community. Feeling creative, we decided to put the entire proposal in a booklet and mail it to every district resident.

Then, mistakenly, we decided I would write the booklet.

For the past week my school has been closed due to the snows that have made our roads unsafe for bus traffic.  This happens sometimes, and it starts the annual computing of when the last day of school will be.  It also started a rather telling conversation about global warming.

At the monthly pancake breakfast this past weekend a number of folks dug out of the snow and made it in for coffee, conversations, and too much to eat.  More than once some neighbor made a comment about the weather and global warming.  “So much for global warming,” or “Where’s Al Gore when we need him?” or “If the world’s heating up, why are my walks still frozen over?”

In the Dec. 14 issue of The New Yorker, physician Atul Gawande takes on one of the persistent critiques of the current health care debate:

“We crave sweeping transformation, however all the current bill offers is … pilot programs, a battery of small-scale experiments.  The strategy seems hopelessly inadequate to solve a problem of this magnitude.  And yet—here’s the interesting thing—history suggests otherwise.”

(Previously published in the Columbus Dispatch) 

The recent release of the Department of Education's Race to the Top application has me anxious and hopeful. On the one hand, we've been through a trying eight years of the failed No Child Left Behind Act. Schools have dumbed-down and narrowed curricula, cutting the arts, physical education and more in the name of prepping for tests. Some kindergartners have forsaken rest time and recess for test prep; field trips have been replaced by worksheets; and some students likely to fail the tests have been pushed out of schools.

I always try to be first to vote in my town, and usually lose out to a local electrician whose job starts even earlier than mine. Part of the reason for my early arrival is that it gives me time to check in and chat with our former students who are working the polls as well as those that are showing up to vote.

It is with great sadness that we at The Forum share with you the news of the death of our friend and mentor, Ted Sizer.  Ted lost his battle with cancer on Wednesday while at home with his family.

Forum for Education and Democracy National Director Sam Chaltain issued the following statement on Secretary Duncan’s priorities for ESEA reauthorization:

“At The Forum, we share Secretary Duncan’s sense of urgency regarding the reauthorization of ESEA, and we appreciate his call for substantive policy ideas from the field of advocates, educators and others.  We also agree that standardized tests, when used as the sole measure of student achievement, distort our public education system and discourage educators from creating healthy and high-functioning learning environments.

August 27, 2009

Office of Secondary and Elementary Education
c/o Race to the Top Fund
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Room 3W329
Washington, DC 20202

To Whom It May Concern:

We are writing to submit our comments regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s (“Department”) notice of proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria pertaining to the Race to the Top Fund (“Fund”). These comments reflect the Forum for Education and Democracy’s (“Forum”) concerns as well as our recommendations for how to improve the proposed regulations.

This year it happened on the second day of school.

I was told there was a young man waiting in the office to see me.  My secretary gave me the heads up—he was 18, had moved in with someone in the district, and wanted to come to our school.
 
His glasses were broken and he needed a shave, and it didn’t help that he had a hard time looking me in the eye because of his nervousness.  The story was one I have heard every school year in one form or another.  Jeff (not his real name) had left home and landed in our backyard because of a girl he had met on a visit to the area.  Living with her family, he wanted to come back to school and try to graduate.