Education Blogs

Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy this morning issued a "clarification" regarding remarks made on yesterday's show about the Texas textbook debate. Those remarks led to a harsh press release from the Texas Education Agency accusing the news network of...

A highly unusual press release from the Texas Education Agency accuses the Fox News network of distorting the truth in the contentious textbook debate among members of the State Board of Education. You can familiarize yourself with Fox's coverage of...

Middle school students connect with history by writing stories from a slave's perspective.

A new set of academic standards that aims to ensure that all American children are learning at the proper pace was unveiled today in Seattle, the Associated Press reports. As you may recall, Texas and Alaska are the only states...

How a neglected student named Tamara Douglass went on to become an award-winning teacher at the same school.

The Houston school board hit on a lot of hot topics at its meeting Monday. Trustees discussed perhaps the most controversial issue — CEP — at the end, wrapping up around 7:40 p.m., but we were able to sneak a...

I have had friends ask me what I think of our neighborhood school, and my answer is quite simple. I tell them, "The school is only as good as the teacher your child has that year." I have believed this for a very long time. This stems from my belief that good teaching trumps everything when it comes to student achievement. Analyze all the data you want, throw a bunch of acronyms at people (NCLB, RtI, IEP, DIBELS, FAPE, PBIS, Yada Yada Yada), and race to the top of wherever you want. Yet, everything boils down to good teaching in the classroom.

This opinion is based on watching my own two children go through school and on my 23 years of experience as an educator . Why is it that one child will have a great third grade experience while another one will not? And then in fourth grade, the situation is reversed. They attend the same school with the same curriculum, the same principal, the same assessments, the same materials, supplies, and technology. Yet, their educational experiences differ greatly from year to year.

To a parent, it does not take a PhD from an Ivy League University to figure out why their children's educational experiences are discrepant. Obviously this is the result of the quality of the teacher they have each year. As an educator, I can see the differences in teachers quite clearly so I spend countless hours talking to staff members about good teaching strategies and planning effective (hopefully) staff development activities all for the sake of improved instruction and class management.

I have wondered for a long time if excellent teaching is an innate gift that can't be taught. You either have it or you don't. It sure does not seem as if good teachers are developed in collegiate teacher education programs. Nor do I think outstanding teaching is a self-taught skill.

Well, maybe the best teaching CAN be taught to teachers, and according to a terrific article in the March 7 New York Time Magazine titled "Can Good Teaching be Learned?" excellent teaching is a learned skill.

The article describes the work of Doug Lemov, a teacher, principal, and charter-school founder who has written a book called Teach Like a Champion: The 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. This book, which will be released in April, describes 49 specific teaching techniques (jokingly referred to as the "Lemov Taxonomy") that will make all teachers better.

I have read many books on good teaching and instruction, I have recommended many of these to colleagues of mine, and I have led staff book studies on the best ones. However, if this book turns out to be as good as the NYT article describes, I think it could revolutionize teacher training for years to come. Click on the cover of the book at the Amazon site, and check out the table of contents! Do your teachers need to improve in some or all of these areas?

Maybe the way to make our schools the best in the world is to make our teachers the best in the world.

I can't wait to get my copy!

- Dave Sherman

I have had friends ask me what I think of our neighborhood school, and my answer is quite simple. I tell them, "The school is only as good as the teacher your child has that year." I have believed... LeaderTalk Contributor http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/

School districts across the country take advantage of incentives for mounting solar panels.

Many students are up in arms about looming funding losses and teacher layoffs.

As mentioned in a previous post there has been a recent trend of students facing school disciplinary procedures for off-campus activities and behaviors in cyberspace. It is the goal of this post to discuss 1st Amendment common law as it relates to student cyberspace activities. Because there have been no truly definitive rulings to date on 1st Amendment issues regarding free speech in the schoolosphere, all parties are left to hypothesize about the boundary lines of student cyberspeech. However a review of a trilogy of law cases dating back as far as 1969 that acts as the guidelines for current rulings on student free speech might be of use to all of us.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is the earliest of these keystone cases. Tinker specifically focused on the rights high school students have to express free speech. The case involved a school policy stating that students were not allowed to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Three students wore the bands, then refused to take them off when directed to do so by school administrators. The students were subsequently suspended. As a result of the suspension, the students sued the school district claiming their first amendment rights were violated. The court found that students do not give up rights to freedom of speech "at the school house gate." The court further stated that absent a "constitutionally valid reason to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views." From this came the need for a test to determine what comprises a "constitutionally valid reason." Thus the "substantial disruption test" was born. This test outlined the fact that students' speech may only be regulated if it causes a substantial disruption of school activities.Approximately two decades later, in 1986, the issue of students' freedom of speech was raised yet again.

In Bethel School District Number 403 v. Fraser, the court found that schools were allowed to punish students for speech that administrators deemed to be improper, when spoken by students on school grounds or at school functions. In Bethel, Matthew Frazer was suspended for giving a speech at a school-wide assembly because he used a continuing sexual metaphor to describe the candidate he was supporting. Subsequently, Frazer was given a three day suspension and was prohibited from speaking at graduation. After some disagreement between the district and the state appellate courts, the Supreme Court ruled that sexually explicit student speech was not protected under Tinker.

The final case in the trilogy, from a Supreme Court ruling in 1988, is Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. This case centered on the content of a school newspaper. In Hazelwood, students wrote about their experiences with divorce and teen pregnancy; however, the administration forbade it to be printed. The students claimed that their rights to free speech were violated. However, the court ruled that since the newspapers were part of the school program, the students did not have the shelter of the 1st Amendment umbrella.

Despite these three court opinions, there is no clear wide reaching common law ruling regarding students' behaviors as they relate to internet activities or cyber speech. Further complicating the matter is the fact that prior to widespread use of computers and the internet, speech was typically in the same location as the person. In this digital age, quite often a person may be located a continent away from their "speech," as that "speech" may be displayed on a social networking page, in a website, in a blog, in a tweet, or by a message, viewed on a computer, or even sent to a cell phone.Additionally, proponents for new legislation assert the necessity of addressing students' freedom of speech because the degree of disturbance created by students' speech may be much more broad than in the past. Widespread use of digital technology provides students with a much larger forum to discuss their views than was possible before the digital age. With several keystrokes, students are now able to project their views to an unlimited audience for an unlimited time period.

Until the judicial system addresses current issues surrounding free speech as it relates to students and their cyber activities, there will continue to be questions for us all as to what constitutes acceptable behavior for students as it relates to freedom of speech. As we progress further into our digital lives, it becomes more imperative that we have a judicially determined set of parameters addressing students' freedom of speech. Until that day, teachers, students, and administrators must continue to agree that they may disagree.

For a more inclusive list of relevant common law cases, or if you wish to send us a relevant case from your area please contact us at robert.hancock@selu.edu.

Anita Dubusdevalempre, Robert Hancock, and Julie Matte.