Getting Housed By The Bush Tax Code
Seriously ya'll, I'm a 28-year-old public school teacher with a bucket-full of deductible expenses and I'm not within shouting distance of a tax refund. I am, in fact, currently facing substantial tax...
View ArticleMercury News Craps The Bed On The Achievement Gap
Maybe you read or saw or followed a link to last week's launch of a five-part series on the achievement gap, as viewed through the lens of culture. The article posits a destructive "cool vs. smart"...
View ArticleGood Idea For Inhibiting School Growth (iii)
When kids leave backpacks unattended in front of classroom doors during breakfast, brunch, and lunch, some things will inevitably go missing. Sometimes the things that go missing are candy. This is sad...
View ArticleSound The Trumpets
My team and I finally finished our Master's Degree "thesis," known locally as an Action Research Project, overcoming some pretty intense distractions along the path toward completion. Here's everything...
View ArticleGood Ideas For Inhibiting School Growth (iv)
In addition to pretty much making a sloppy mess of the first two days of state testing, next accuse one of the more talented and ardent teachers* at the site of intentionally sabotaging the testing...
View ArticleOverkill
[1] A gaggle of girls in my various classes have decided the whole tío-sobrina shouldn’t die, and we’ve pretty much abandoned using each other’s names at this point. New kid’s struggling with this like...
View ArticleFrom Alan Keyes To John Edwards
The writings on this site have been nominated for the Ed in 08 Best of the Blogs Award.Allow whatever Spirit you understand most fully to move you in whatever ways you feel are most appropriate, given...
View ArticleImagine No Barriers
Teach For America's Alumni Magazine, One Day, is sponsoring an essay contest."Imagine no barriers. No limits. How would you reinvent the profession of teaching?"The deadline has already passed, so...
View ArticleMeet Jake
Jake's a graduating senior at Yale, with only a few days left, which means that as you read this, he is either hungover or drunk. This is a binary condition, admitting no other possibilities.Jake's a...
View ArticleEd In 08 Blogger Summit...
...has come and gone, and a good time was had by all. I heard some interesting discussions, listened to some quality ideas floated (extended school days) and some silly ones (paying kids to read...
View ArticleNot The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming Round
Been looking from outside, I’ve been watchingBut I don’t know what to say/Changed the old backdrop, same faceBut not who it used to be/Trying to get out, not getting, thinking you're everythingYou said...
View ArticleDaaaaaaamn
More Ed in 08 for your youtubing pleasure.This was fantastic. Everyone in the room stiffened, sat a little straighter, and I'm in the back corner, hidden by that lovely column in the right-hand portion...
View ArticleTerminal
I’m renaming this blog “The John Kennedy Toole Experience.”This is what posthumous success feels like. You announce that you’re a terminal teacher and suddenly your unremarkable little 100-hit-a-day...
View ArticleCausation’s Messy, Messy Goulash
I wasn’t going to do this one, originally. But then I wrote it, and it’s been sitting in my computer, waiting for current events to reach clarity and resolution. That ain't happening, so I'll go with...
View ArticleFinal Two Days (Three Years Ago)
For reasons that are redacted, I can't be around for the final days of school, including the graduation ceremony. The less said on this the better, but in place of any thoughts I would have had on...
View ArticleFifty-One Minutes
Dear Jake,So this is what you want, huh? What you told people you were going to do, what you always talked about? This is what you said you wanted, right? No, for reals– you’re gonna do this? You’re...
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The Party's Over...
…a CD skipping/it’s the same hook repeatinggrows more grating with each passing second/and the walls contain a resonationlaughter and conversation/it was fun while it lastedbut now I should be...
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Rumors Of My Demise...
…while admittedly self-generated, may prove to be largely exaggerated. Or at least premature.In a few weeks I start work with the stellar folks at The Education Trust – West, an organization doing...
View ArticleAnd Another Bond Broken
I have this old-school hard-shell briefcase, defaced with bumper stickers and ill-treatment, in which I keep my classroom artifacts -- smarty pants, certain pictures, student work samples, balls and...
View ArticleRocking Out in ASCD's Education Update
I'm kinda heavily quoted in an essay in ASCD's latest newsletter entitled Taking the Fear Out of the First Year. If you're interested in such things, it's well-written and smart, and besides the...
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