Are you aware of the new teaching approach in middle school English classes that gives kids a say in which books they read?
The approach is known as “reading workshop” and “…students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading…”
I sent the article to my niece, who alternates between teaching and being a school librarian. She started as a teacher, was driven out of it by internal politics and unreasonable parents, got a Master of Library Science and spent a few years as school librarian and is now back …read more

Two weeks ago I wrote about the M3 Foundation and its success turning around at risk black boys.
Today I have the pleasure of interviewing M3’s founder KG Charles-Harris.
Why did you start M3?
I started the M3 Foundation when I became aware of the plight of black boys in school.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, 73 percent of black boys drop out of school (nationally the average is 54%).  These statistics places one of the wealthiest areas of the world on par with war torn areas like the Congo or very impoverished nations like Laos.  The statistics, along with meeting some …read more

Did you know that six out of ten of the boys who could help build our future drop out of school and end up in jail?
That’s a full 60% and that is one scary number.
These boys are just like your sons—only without the same opportunities.
These boys are black.
The M3 Foundation is changing that one small step at a time.
M3 was started three years ago by KG Charles-Harris, CEO of Emanio, who I met first as a client and now count as a good friend.
The following is from this year’s M3 year-end report.
“M3 has had tremendous success during the past 3 …read more

An article in the NY Times gives a first look at new directions for education,
“…the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. … The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school graduates can succeed — without remedial classes — in college, the workplace or the military.”
Sounds great, but all I can say is good luck.
Not because of teacher quality; not because of money, since …read more

I found a great quote on JD Prickett’s blog by Harvard’s Roland Barth.
“Show me a school whose inhabitants constantly examine the school’s culture and work to transform it into one hospitable to sustained human learning, and I’ll show you students who graduate with both the capacity and the heart for lifelong learning.”
I agree passionately that the school’s culture is the basis for its accomplishments and that the principal’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is the source, whether active, passive or by benign neglect.
Unfortunately, the culture described above is constrained, distorted or totally destroyed by education policy—Dallas Independent School …read more

Or is it a pyramid?“A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns (“profits”) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business.”
“A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered.”
This is what came to mind after reading CandidProf’s post yesterday; I finally decided that’s it’s both, making is a pyra-Ponzi scheme.
As CP described the situation it’s definitely a pyramid, his …read more