The De-Emphasis of Writing in the Workplace
I received an e-mail last week from an esteemed urban planning firm based in New York. It was a spring newsletter, well-designed, beautiful, actually, and graphically sound. But as I began reading the text boxes, my attention was derailed. The language was laborious, sleepy-sounding, almost, like the words themselves were being dragged out of bed. […]
Another Effort To Discriminate Against Transgender Students Just Failed
• The bill sought to block transgender students from using certain bathrooms.• Tennessee’s GOP governor opposed the measure. A controversial Tennessee bill that discriminated against transgender students died in the state legislature Tuesday. The legislation would have required students to only use school restrooms that corresponded with the gender they were assigned at birth. Lawmakers on […]
Students In D.C. Combated Westboro In A Truly Amazing Way
When the Westboro Baptist Church arrived on their campus on March 21, students at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., chose to respond in a truly beautiful (and musical) way. Last week, Westboro members had vowed to picket the high school, as well as the nearby Francis Cardozo Education Campus, starting at 7:30 […]
U.S. News & World Report's 2017 Best Graduate Schools Rankings
Almost 1 million people are expected to earn graduate degrees this school year, and for many of them it will be worth the late nights of studying. Full-time, year-round adult workers with a master’s degree earned, on average, $88,477 in 2012, just over $18,000 more than the average worker with a bachelor’s degree, according to […]
How Not to Help Poor, Black Children
Four years ago, I traveled to Cameroon on an educational mission trip. I packed as light as I could to carry as many school supplies and books as possible. Then I visited numerous villages in the Northwest Region, observing classrooms and leading professional development for teachers. While my skin matched the bronzed hues of most […]
How Teaching Millennials Affects My Parenting
I have two of the most rewarding, although often exhausting, jobs in the world. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between the hours of 8 and 4, you can find me teaching college students how to write — a challenging task, but one I love nonetheless. All other hours of the day and night, I am […]
Elections and Technology – Who Controls Who?
During the 2012 Presidential race, I wrote a story on the role technology was playing in election politics that pretty much boiled down to the claim that computers just allowed more people to do more of the same faster and cheaper. In retrospect, I was probably wrong about that. (Just to show that’s not the […]
Will Charters Really Try to Replace Suspensions With Win-Win Alternatives?
A year ago, the Oklahoma City Public School System (OKCPS) was stunned when the size of our racial “discipline gap” was revealed in Are We Closing the School Discipline Gap? by Daniel Losen et. al. of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Oklahoma Gazette’s Ben Felder was […]
A Fight for the Very Soul of Our Country
It’s one of my proudest moments as a civics teacher — and I didn’t have to say a word: I had helped the students in my American history class prepare to debate whether the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified. But once the debate began, I just stepped back and […]
Prep School Sexual Assault Convict Owen Labrie Sent To Prison
A New Hampshire judge on Friday ordered a former prep school student to begin serving a one-year prison sentence after violating his curfew in a high-profile case over sex at elite St. Paul’s School. The student, Owen Labrie, 20, was sentenced last year for felony luring as well as misdemeanor charges related to having a […]