State Departments of Education Should Stop Trying to Predict Who Will Be a Good Teacher
Teacher quality is hugely important. The difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher can be as much as...
What Should a Charter School Application Look Like?
In 2012, the Missouri Board of Education closed six Imagine charter schools. The Imagine network is one of the largest...
Will HB 42 Hurt Alternative High Schools?
The Columbia Tribune reported that Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Peter Stiepleman and other superintendents across the state are telling Gov....
School Visit Series: A Charter With a Second Chance
Dorothy Curry and Sue Jarvis had a dream—build a school that helps at-risk children reach their full potential. Their vision...
Missouri Ranks 33rd on New Quality Counts Report
As they do at the beginning of every year, Education Week released their “Quality Counts” state report cards. Once again,...
Should Missouri Use an A Through F System to Grade Public Schools?
The practice of grading organizations using an A through F grading scale has been utilized by many types of industries....
Missouri’s Teacher Equity Plan Draft Misses the Mark
Is a teacher with a master’s degree in biology and several years of research experience unqualified to teach high school...
The Score Is Falling! The Score Is Falling!-Or Not
When it was announced that hundreds of students would transfer from the unaccredited school districts of Normandy and Riverview Gardens...
Show-Me Now! School Transfer
Through a series of legal maneuvers, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the State Board of...
The Transfer Law: Another Disappointment
Cameral Cotton’s children were deeply saddened when they learned they would not return to Francis Howell School District. Cameral’s three...
Kansas City Schools Adopt CEE-Trust, Sort Of
In January 2014, Joe Robertson, of the Kansas City Star, wrote the following about the CEE-Trust proposal for Kansas City public...
I’ll Scratch Your Back, If You Comply With This Federal Mandate
Last October, my students learned a few vocabulary words — amendment, judicial review, and furlough. The government shutdown created what...
Want Better Teachers In High-Need Schools? Fix Pensions
What if instead of busing students from failing school districts to accredited ones, we bused great teachers from accredited schools...
The Francis Howell Transfer Decision: One Family’s Disappointment
“It’s a slap in the face.” That was parent Cameral Cotton’s response to the Francis Howell School District’s decision to...
Transfer Decisions Begging For A Lawsuit?
Recent decisions that the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the State Board of Education have made raise...
The Transfer Program – Curbing The Decade-Long Drop In Enrollment?
According to data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, enrollment in the Normandy School District has been...
When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife? – Common Core Edition
Loaded questions are a great way of winning an argument. It puts your opponent on the defensive and frames the...
Current Teacher Pension Systems Impose A “Tariff” On Labor
As first appearing in TeacherPensions.org on 25 Feb, 2014, and Education Next on 26 Feb, 2014: In Missouri, students in...
Mirror Mirror, Who Is The Highest Paid Of Them All?
Yesterday, the Missouri Auditor’s office released its audit of the Lee’s Summit R-VII School District. Relatively speaking, it was a...
More Money Needed For Common Core…I’m Not Surprised
Almost a year ago, I testified before the Missouri Legislature that “Implementing the [Common Core State Standards] would lead to...
