by Cheryl Ortega UTLA Director of Bilingual Education I became acquainted with Mr. Marshall Tuck in 2008, the first year of the rollout out of PLAS. As Director of Bilingual Education for UTLA, I had received a call from some teachers at Ritter Elementary School in Watts concerned that their Dual Language Program would […]
Pros and Cons of Charter Schools
Dov Rosenberg is an experienced public school teacher in North Carolina. Some of my issues with charter schools include: They benefit by serving families with the most parental involvement because it requires the knowledge and time to apply to a charter. This further concentrates families with less parental involvement in the traditional public schools. They […]
#vetthesupe Teacher Perspectives on LAUSD’s Next Superintendent
Jose Lara is the recipient the National Education Association Social Justice Activist Award 2015, an organization of 3 million members. He is a teacher in Los Angeles and a parent in Pico Rivera, CA. He can be reached at jlara2012@gmail.com. What do we need in the next superintendent in LAUSD? We need someone who is […]
SBAC/CAASPP or PARCC: Question the Tests
Pamela Casey Nagler is a longtime Claremont resident, a former student of Claremont public schools and a high school teacher at nearby Montclair High School. She remembers taking one standardized test when she attended Claremont High School – the Ohio Achievement Test – that was essentially an aptitude test to identify an individual’s strengths and […]
Catholic Sainthood For Junipero Serra Will Erase Native Americans All Over Again
This guest post comes from Pamela Casey Nagler, who is a teacher in California. This piece is part of a series, Why We Need Ethnic Studies. This is why we need better history courses — more ethnic studies in our high schools. video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player The Pope has just announced that […]
Sen. Alexander, No Child Left Behind’s High Stakes Tests Narrow the Curriculum
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is now chair of the education committee in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension committee, and has officially opened the door to reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, also known as the ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). He’s seeking emails and letters talking about testing and accountability […]
Leave At 3:00 PM? Hardly — Teachers Pay To Be Overworked
Guest blogger Susan DuFresne is an experienced teacher in Washington state. (She is not pictured.) This is part of a series called Voices From the Classroom. A teacher’s workload is impossible. Twenty-four hours is not enough. I worked a 15 1/2 hour day yesterday & the to-do list is still ridiculously long. After teaching […]
LA Times Report on Teacher Evaluations Incorrect
Heather Poland (A Teacher’s Perspective) is a teacher in California. This piece is part of a series called Voices From the Classroom. It’s reposted from A Teacher’s Perspective with permission. Recently, the LA Times reported that, “Major California school districts are failing to comply with a state law that requires them to evaluate teachers in […]
People-Powered Public Education News: K-12 News Network Turns Four!
It’s January, 2015, and K-12 News Network has been doing ground-breaking, people-powered public education news covered from the classroom up for FOUR years now! Thank you, readers, bloggers, and activists, for being folks actively making a new kind of education news. Some highlights from our first four years: In August, 2010, when the LA Times […]
Public Education Battles for Mexican American Studies Are A Free Speech and Intellectual Freedom Issue Too
Meet writer and professor Tony Diaz and find out why Arizona tried, and will likely fail, to ban Mexican American Studies and other Ethnic Studies classes in public schools. Diaz launched the Librotraficante (book smuggler) movement that pokes and prods the narrow-minded government officials who would really like to banish Latinos and declare their culture […]