During the summer, I am sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past 10 years. You can see all those collections from the first nine years here.
Here are the ones I鈥檝e published so far:
The 11 Most Popular Classroom Q&A Posts of the Year
School Closures & the Coronavirus Crisis
Best Ways to Begin the School Year
Best Ways to End the School Year
Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning
Challenging Normative Gender Culture in Education
Cooperative & Collaborative Learning
Teaching English-Language Learners
Today鈥檚 theme is on education policy issues. You can see the list of posts following this excerpt from one of them:
*Teachers Share What They Want Central Offices & Public Officials to Hear
Those making policy decisions often don鈥檛 ask educators what they need. Teachers suggest ways they can be helpful to people in the trenches.
* 鈥楾here鈥檚 a Lot of Potential Learning From Teachers Waiting to Happen鈥�
Three educators and researchers share suggestions about how the two groups can better work together.
* What Education Researchers Can Learn From Teachers
Four educators discuss how researchers can make sure they are not asking the 鈥渨rong questions.鈥�
Four educators share their thoughts on the biggest dangers facing schools, including the silence of educators, often keeping mum in the 鈥渇ace of injustices that in our hearts and minds we know are unethical.鈥�
Three educators discuss dangers facing education today, including gun violence and teacher burnout, as well as shrinking school budgets that threaten programs and student well-being.
Here are responses to the question of how to handle school dress codes from Kelly Wickham Hurst, Jennifer Orr, Bill Ivey, Amy Sandvold, and Steven Goodman.
David Berliner, Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski, Douglas Reeves, Timothy Hilton, Amanda Koonlaba, and Erin Scholes share their thoughts on the role of student-test scores in teacher evaluations.
Douglas Reeves, Jennifer Borgioli, Kristin DeJong, Chris Gareis, and Leslie Grant explore how state standardized tests can be improved.
Scott Ratchford, Michael Lubelfeld, Jody Spiro, Jonas Chartock, and Victoria L. Bernhardt comment on the best roles central offices should play in providing school support.
Adeyemi Stembridge, Douglas Reeves, Amber Teamann, PJ Caposey, Rachael George, Patrick Darfler-Sweeney, and Sherry Lanza share their ideas on how school district central offices can best help schools.
Ramon Goings, Lorena German, Sally Zepeda, Jenny Grant Rankin, David Bateman, Ph.D., and Jenifer Cline, M.S., discuss how researchers and educators can work together in better ways.
Megan M. Allen, Debbie Zacarian, Joe Hendershott, Russel Tarr, Laura Greenstein, and Robert Jorczak share their thoughts about education buzzwords.
Rita Platt, Douglas Reeves, Jennifer Borgioli, Melissa Eddington, Mike Janatovich, Mandi White, and Tara Dale share their buzzword nominations.
Manuel Rustin, Jeffrey Garrett, Stephen Lazar, Debbie Silver, Katy Farber, and John George share their commentaries on what teachers鈥� unions should look like 20 years from now.
Brian Guerrero, Nikki Milevsky, David Fisher, John Borsos, Jennifer Thomas, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, and Shannan Brown discuss the future of teachers鈥� unions.
Tony Diaz, Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath, and H. Richard Milner IV write about the importance of ethnic-studies classes.
A four-part series on what education policymakers need to know is wrapped up with commentaries from Suzie Boss, Aba Ngissah, Meghan Everette, Tamara Fyke, and John George.
Donna Wilson, Marcus Conyers, Jen Schwanke, Rachael Gabriel, Sarah Woulfin, Karen Gross, and Brian Moore write what they think policymakers are missing when it comes to education.
Barnett Berry, Heather Wolpert-Gawron, Kate Sacco, Cathy Seeley, and Pia Lindquist Wong contribute their nominations for education info that decisionmakers don鈥檛 know.
Jennie Magiera, San茅e Bell, Amanda Koonlaba, Matthew A. Kraft, and Douglas Reeves share their thoughts on what policymakers don鈥檛 know about schools, teachers, and students.
Tricia Hyun, Sarah Thomas, former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., Mandi White, and Tara Dale share their commentaries on the most exciting things happening in education today.
Donna Wilson, Marcus Conyers, Rachael George, Meghan Everette, and Carolina P茅rez offer their nominations for the most exciting developments in education today.
Steve Constantino, Tom Hoerr, Cynthia 鈥淢ama J鈥� Johnson, and Jonas Chartock wrap up a three-part series on exciting aspects of education today.
Randi Weingarten, Barnett Berry, Morgan Polikoff, Erik M. Francis, and Jacki Gran write how they believe the Every Student Succeeds Act will affect classroom practice.
PJ Caposey, Heidi Pace, Catherine Beck, Jocelyn A. Chadwick, and Rachael George contribute their thoughts on rural education.
Silvia Ibarra, Amanda Koonlaba, Jennifer Hesseltine, and Rita Platt share their experiences working in successful low-income rural districts.
Elliot Y. Merenbloom, Barbara A. Kalina, Thomas R. Hoerr, Erik M. Francis, Andrew Miller, and Effuah Sam contribute their ideas on extending or not extending the school year/day.
Matthew A. Kraft, Barry Saide, Christine Brandt, Daniel R. Venables, and Matt Renwick share their ideas on extending the school day or year.
Mark Gaither, JoAnne Ferrara, Katrina Kickbush, and Mavis G. Sanders share their thoughts on community schools, and readers who are leaders of community schools around the United States also contribute their experiences.
Linda Denstaedt, Elise Foster, Alyssa Gallagher, Vicky Giouroukakis, Maureen Connolly, Kirke Olson, and Nancy Sulla discuss how to bridge gaps between new ideas and their implementation.
Cathy Beck, Heidi Pace, Dan Rothstein, Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski, Jaime Aquino, and Jeff Bradbury share their ideas on how to move good ideas to effective implementation.
San茅e Bell, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, Fred Ende, William Ayers, Coleen Armstrong-Yamamura, Bidyut Bose, and Erik Palmer contribute their thoughts on the future of schools and teaching.
Diana Laufenberg, Nancy Sulla, Matt Renwick, Barnett Berry, PJ Caposey, and Ken Halla share their predictions for the future of education.
Karen Baptiste, Eric C. Heins, Mary Tedrow, and David Griffith share their suggestions on how teachers can affect education policy decisions.
This post includes contributions from Randi Weingarten, Jody Spiro, Susan Ochshorn, and Meghan Everette discussing how teachers can effectively engage in educational policy decisions. I鈥檝e also included comments by readers.
This post includes responses from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, California Teachers Association (past) President Dean Vogel, and 2012 National Teacher of the Year Rebecca Mieliwocki.
This column features contributions from Julian Vasquez Heilig (with Lisa Hernandez), Ben Spielberg, David Berliner, and Paul Bruno.
W. James Popham, Barnett Berry, Pia Lindquist Wong, Rick Stiggins, and Derek Cabrera share their thoughts.
Gloria Ladson-Billings, Travis J. Bristol, and Terrenda Corisa White contribute their responses here.
This post highlights contributions from teachers Antoine Germany, James Pale, Dominique Williams, and Evelyn Ramos, and from student Jacquelin Estrada.
Teacher Ya Po Cha, teacher Elizabeth Villanueva, student-teacher Billy William Ivy, biligual aide Alma Avalos, and student Amanda Martinez provide their thoughts on the topic.
Ted Appel, ReLeah Cossett, PJ Caposey, and Tom Hoerr contribute their commentaries.
Educators Pia Lindquist Wong, Rufus Thompson, Gail L. Thompson, Yvette Jackson, Veronica McDermott, Karen Baptiste, Joseph F. Johnson Jr., Cynthia L. Uline, and Lynne G. Perez contribute to this jam-packed post.
This post features contributions from Mark Y. Lineberg, Doris A. Santoro, Dave F. Brown, and Patricia Jennings. I鈥檝e also highlighted comments from readers.
Educators Renee Moore, Katy Farber, Sharon Jacobs, and Opal Davis Dawson share their responses.
Kathleen Budge, William Parrett, Cathie E. West, Kevin L. O鈥橤orman, Jacqueline E. Jacobs, and Pia Lindquist Wong contribute their commentaries.
Educators Angel Cintron and Paul Bruno contribute guest responses here.
Barnett Berry and Ilana Garon share their thoughts in this post.
Liam Goldrick and David Orphal contribute responses, and I feature many comments from readers, too.
Several educators鈥擝arnett Berry, Ariel Sacks, John Thompson, Alice Mercer, and David B. Cohen鈥攚eigh in with their thoughts on the fifth anniversary of the Race to the Top program, and I include comments from readers, too.
Educators John Kuhn and Gary Rubinstein share their thoughts on RTTT.
I interview Barnett Berry about the book (Jossey-Bass 2013) authored by Barnett and Center for Teaching Quality colleagues Ann Byrd and Alan Wieder. In it, they document the leadership journeys of eight classroom educators (several who are regular contributors to this blog) who are spreading their expertise beyond their schools, districts, and states鈥攁nd even nationally and internationally.
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This post contains some great guest responses from four educator/authors: Trent Kaufman and Emily Dolci Grimm, PJ Caposey, and Brian Nichols.
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This is Part One in a series responding to the question: 鈥淗ow can teachers best relate to superintendents鈥攁nd vice versa?鈥�
This post provides responses from a teacher鈥檚 perspective, with contributions from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association; and Barnett Berry of the Center for Teaching Quality.
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This is Part Two and provides responses from three superintendents鈥� perspectives, with contributions from Joshua Starr, Pamela Moran, and John Kuhn,along with comments from readers.
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This post contains an exceptional guest response from well-known educator/author Rick Wormeli.
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Educator/authors Kimberly Kappler Hewitt, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and Heather Wolpert-Gawron contribute their thoughts in this post.
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This post starts with a brief introduction to PAR from Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association. Then Shannan Brown and Cheryl Dultz from the San Juan Unified school district in California and Doug Prouty from the Montgomery County public schools in Maryland explain the PAR programs in their districts.
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This Part Two post includes American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten providing her perspective and Julie Sellers talking about a program in Cincinnati. In addition, reader Marie Costanza shares about the PAR program in Rochester, N.Y., and Brenda Sherry offers her experience in Ontario, Canada.
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Professors David C. Berliner and Yong Zhao offer their thoughts on the topic.
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Katie Hull Sypnieski, the best teacher I鈥檝e ever seen in the classroom, and staff from the American Federation of Teachers researching teacher evaluation contribute their responses.
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Experienced researchers Matthew Di Carlo from the Albert Shanker Institute and P. L. Thomas from Furman University discuss the issue.
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Paul Taillefer, president of the Canadian Teachers鈥� Federation; Vice Principal (& parent) Shannon Smith; and parent leaders Annie Kidder and Sheila Stewart share their varied comments.
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Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association; my friend and colleague Renee Moore, who was a member of the commission that helped develop the 鈥淎genda,鈥� and Steve Owens, an NEA leader from Vermont, are guest contributors in this post.
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Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, and Barnett Berry, president of the Center for Teaching Quality, respond, and I contribute an intriguing chart.
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Michael Fullan, professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and special adviser to the premier and minister of education in Ontario, writes about what鈥檚 happening in ... Ontario.
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Donald Moore, the executive director of Chicago-based Designs for Change and a nationally recognized expert on the issue, shares his perspective.
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Representatives from the two groups of states preparing the new assessments, the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC, and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers consortium, or PARCC, contribute responses.
