Tag Archives: school

Training Our Way to a New Oligarchy? Not Yet!

students protest
Students in Jefferson County, Colo protest forced changes in U.S. History standards by local school board. Credit: RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

In Texas and now in Colorado conservatives on the far right have been in a panic about history students actually learning history. Whether being earnest in their own beliefs or being duped by corporate propaganda efforts, these conservatives want desperately to put a lid on history study at the high school level that might explore all of American history.

Continue reading Training Our Way to a New Oligarchy? Not Yet!

It Takes Practice to Become This Kind of a Rainbow

My students are from lots of places: Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico, Vietnam, South Korea, China, and Taiwan this year. The mix is always changing. My two classes are adult-ed, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.

I am lucky to have such a good part-time job working for an awesome community college. This is only my second semester to teach in this program.

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The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 3 — Newark

Newark Parents wait in line for school assignment.
Newark parents and students wait in long lines to find out their school assignment. Next, they stand in line at another location to actually enroll. Credit: myfoxtampabay.com

This is the 3rd in a series of three posts pointing out how corporate, investor-owned charter school organizations have chosen to experiment at the expense of children who are mostly from poor families.

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School Discipline Policies are Where the Anger Begins for Too Many Black Americans

Ferguson, Missouri protest, Aug 16th, Credit: CBS News
Ferguson, Missouri protest, Aug 16th, Credit: CBS News

What we are seeing in Ferguson, Missouri and in other cities is, in part, a direct outgrowth of misguided school suspension/expulsion policies over the last 50 years.

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Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part 2 — Your First Year

3 oclock high - Jerry Mitchell


After you have worked your way through the prep and first few days of your new job teaching alternative school, what next?

During that first year, your teaching abilities will change and grow as never before because the students won’t allow it to be any other way!

In any setting, teaching causes you to grow  personally and professionally.

But, in alternative school, that is a hyper process. The demands of these students are bigger and more pressing than students who you might have taught in student teaching or in earlier teaching positions.

In those two big areas of teacher growth here are my ideas about surviving your first year teaching alternative school.

Continue reading Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part 2 — Your First Year

Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part I — The First Days

The-Breakfast-Club-1985-001


Out of the 16 years that I spent teaching in public schools, 6 were spent teaching in alternative schools. I know some stuff that might help.

This is my good news for you about teaching in alternative school:

The pressure will make you a far better teacher than you ever would have been if you had spent the same amount of time in a traditional school with seemingly compliant students.

Continue reading Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part I — The First Days

No More Shaming — Stand Up For OKC Public Schools!

Credit KOCO TV.
Credit KOCO TV.

The first day of classes for Oklahoma City Public Schools was Monday, August 3rd.

That district is the biggest and most criticized school district in the state. It is also the most ethnically and economically diverse. School “reform” advocates love to show just how bad they think it is in OKCPS. The A-F school grading system is meant to show that.

It is up to the rest of us to remind “reform” folks of reality, which is more complex than their portrayals.

And it is not just out of charity that we move in close to stop the shaming and advocate for OKCPS. Many of the problems with economic and cultural diversity present in the core of the OKC metro are coming to our communities eventually.

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Don’t Believe Right-Wing Rhetoric About “Teachers Unions” in Oklahoma

The ads for Janet Barresi in the Oklahoma City TV market are almost surreal. Are they even talking about Oklahoma? Yes, they are. But I don’t recognize what they are describing.

Now to get the effect, use that deep, male, monster-truck-tractor-pull scary voice to say the words “teachers unionzzzzzzzzzz“. What? You mean there are for-real teachers unions in Oklahoma?

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