The Curse of Testing: Narrow Curriculum
Your Week in Education 8/31 By Danielle Bonnici What should we teach? An interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times discussed the curse of standardized testing this week. Natalie Wexler reports that tests are blamed for narrowing curriculum to focus only on reading and math. The problem is so grave that Congress is considering making changes […]
The Week in Education News 8/24/15
Your Week in Education by Danielle Bonnici Thanks, but no thanks…. Over 200,000 middle schools students in New York State declined to sit for Common Core test this year- four times the amount who refused last year. Initially, it was believed that school districts where less than 95% of the students who took the test […]
Education News Briefing 8-14
Your Education Briefing By Danielle Bonnici It’s been an eventful week in education news: Teacher Shortage A teacher shortage is putting a damper on “back to school”: The New York Times reports that there is a nationwide shortage of teachers, especially in math, science, special ed, and English as a second language. The reasons are […]
New Chicago Grading System
Chicago’s school history is a testimony to the lack of difference that different reform movements have made; Chicago has tried them all to little avail. Chicago is now trying something else to get its high school graduation rate above 50% (that’s right, 50%). There are two core pieces to this effort, described in this article from […]
Regional Support Centers in NYC
Chalkbeat has a nice piece on the philosophy behind Chancellor Farina’s reorganization of support services. The goal of creating consistency across the city is crucial, but really difficult. I have two short comments. First, the support centers which will have over 200 schools which they support (except for the Staten Island one) AND have one […]
Credit Recovery Program
According to Chalkbeat, the city is cracking down on inflated graduation rates, by way of a new task force. (PUBLISHED: Chalkbeat August 4, 2015) Chancellor Carmen Fariña at the Bronx Career & College Preparatory High School in May. ( Photo by Patrick Wall ) The Department of Education is cracking down on graduation rate inflation, […]
A Tree Grows in Staten Island
Actually, it’s five gardens and five Staten Island public schools with grants totaling $11,000. All the schools will use the gardens to teach children about health and nutrition. But to me, the most important thing is that growing a garden changes a person’s relationship to the world. For most of us, everything we eat and […]
St. Rose SBL Alumni in the news
We’re happy to see SBL Alumni landing great jobs! On Monday, the Hazlet Township Board of Education appointed Joseph J. Annibale as assistant superintendent of schools. (Photo courtesy Hazlet School District) Mr. Annibale graduated from the College of St. Rose / CITE SBL program recently. For the full rundown, see the Holmdel-Hazlet Patch For information on […]
