Having attended the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference and Library Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, this past week, I was disheartened to read a recent AP story on my return home by Donna Gordon Blankenship, “Libraries Fading as School Budget Crisis Deepens.” She describes in detail how school [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → Compare the state report cards of charter and public schools in the same city, Youngstown for example, and the numbers don’t lie. Charter schools, by and large, do not educate students any more effectively than public schools in the same district. OEA research bulletin, October 2009, Dayton Daily News, [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → The brands offered by White Hat and Imagine have provided little in terms of tangible results – White Hat’s dropout prevention charter schools post a graduation rate of just 14 percent and no Imagine school earned better than a D on the most recent state report card. Continue reading → A study released Tuesday by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. about a Chicago program that contains performance-based compensation for teachers, shows no evidence that the program boosted student achievement on math and reading tests, compared with a group of similar schools that did not use the performance-based compensation system, Education [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → One of those countless Friday after-work discussions we have with our teaching colleagues has stuck in my mind for the past year. “We’re the only profession in the world,” stated a fellow teacher, “where we are judged not by how we perform, but by how other people perform.” That stopped me [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → Mason City Schools in Mason, Ohio is annually recognized as one of the top public school systems in the State of Ohio. The District earned the state’s top ranking for the past 10 years—most recently Excellent with Distinction. Mason consistently ranks in Ohio’s Academic Top 10– placing 6th out [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → Ohio is ideally placed to compete for $440 million in Race to the Top federal grant money, despite complaints by Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State. Continue reading → Ohio GOP Senators Claim They Can Delay Resolving Education Funding Shortfall until Next Year If the Ohio Senate fails to act on House Bill 318 by December 31, state aid to local school districts will be cut by $50 million per month, approximately 10% cuts for every district, the largest [...] Continue Reading… Continue reading → An interesting article at TeacherHub.com featured some best and worst ”teacher gift stories,” like this one: “I got half a bottle of Lady Stetson one year from a kid who stole it from his Mom. I talked to his Mom and she was really filled up though, that her kid wanted [...] Continue Reading… Pin It Continue reading → We all look forward to that look on a child’s face when she opens a gift she really, really loves. Of course you can’t go wrong with the latest toy or game, but can that toy or game be educational and still be fun? Share your experiences, good or [...] Continue Reading… Pin It Continue reading →