Nancy E. Bailey's Blog, page 48
July 11, 2017
Why Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Graduation Plan Is “Cruel”
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt By now most have heard about Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Graduation Plan to make students describe what they will do after school in order to get […]
July 8, 2017
Dallas Dance: Dancing Into School Districts with Digital Devices
Resigned BCPS Superintendent Dallas Dance Takes Consulting Jobs By Joanne C. Simpson Dallas Dance could be coming to a school district near you. For a visit anyway. Dance’s new role after leaving his $287,000 annual superintendent job at Baltimore County Public Schools after June 30–at least two national consulting gigs. Both companies, MGT Consulting Group […]
July 4, 2017
Public Schools and Freedom: A New Threat as We Celebrate This 4th of July
I wish to dedicate this post to the woman I’m calling America’s librarian, Joan Kramer, who lost her battle with cancer last week. Joan fought for children, their libraries, and their schools, bolstering us with her strong but kind ways. I felt it was important to acknowledge her this 4th of July. A hero and […]
June 28, 2017
Florida Business Leaders Can’t Enjoy Luncheon Due to Dismal Reading Scores
Florida business leaders got together for lunch and the mood was somber. They were sad because children in Manatee and Bradenton are not reading well. And they’re right. In Sarasota, 29 percent of third graders aren’t reading at grade level. In Manatee, it’s 50 percent. Between both counties, 40 percent of third graders are having […]
June 24, 2017
Personalized Learning Is NOT Inclusion!
One is the loneliest number that you will ever do…. ~Three Dog Night Personalized learning must not be mistaken for inclusion. The reality is that it’s student isolation! Inclusion is generally defined as the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure. Doing schoolwork on a digital device by […]
June 21, 2017
How School Data Fails to Tell Us What’s Important
Teachers look for solutions. That’s what we do. But data collection often fails when it comes to solutions. You can collect all the information in the world, but if you don’t know how to use it, or it can’t be translated into something meaningful, the information is worthless. That’s how I feel about yesterday’s article […]
June 18, 2017
Calling Nurturing Men to the Teaching Profession
Happy Father’s Day! I am proud to know many nurturing fathers who are also teachers and who fight for public education. I have also known men who are not fathers, but who are marvelous teachers, who view their students like their own children. Men are needed to teach in this country. There’s supposedly a teacher […]
June 16, 2017
IEPs are a Public School Thing: Let’s Not Forget That!
The Governor of Florida and other education reformers seem to have forgotten where Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) started. In this post, I’d like to remind them. The other night I watched the movie Danny Collins. It’s a loosely based true story about a burned out rock star who learns that years earlier he received a […]
June 13, 2017
Proficiency-Based Learning: Focused on Skills While Missing the Big Picture
…tests are now broken down into specific sets of skills so teachers can identify how well students understand each task. When students get less than a proficient score, they must go back and study the skill they missed. They are then given a chance to retake the relevant portions of the test until they earn […]
June 10, 2017
Preschool Social Emotional Learning (SEL): Discipline in Disguise?
Social Emotional Learning is popular! But why do school reformers discuss SEL like it has been hiding under a rock someone just kicked over? Haven’t preschool teachers always worked with children on how to get along? While reading and thinking about preschool, I thought it would be interesting to explore SEL as it relates to […]
