Literacy is freedom’s gatekeeper. We know that the more literate an individual, the more capable he is of reaching his educational and career aspirations. After all, a major measure of effective schooling is the literacy attainment of its graduates. But the impact of literacy reaches
Three in four U.S. classrooms have at least one student who is an English Learner (EL). Even in schools with EL specialists, ELs spend the majority of their instructional day with core teachers. EL excellence with rigorous content learning requires EVERY teacher be an effective
It has been 20 years since I completed my doctoral research on educational equity in public schools. During one of my initial classroom observations, I shadowed a group of English learners in a kindergarten classroom. The students had just completed an engaging circle time discussing
Assessing English Language Learners, 2nd edition by Margo Gottlieb Ten years ago, the first edition of Margo Gottlieb’s Assessing English Language Learners changed the dialogue about how educators envision educational equity for students. Since then, the ELL and dual language student populations have grown exponentially, and so has
The day after I retired as superintendent of a large suburban New York school district, I drove north to Montreal, instead of south to Miami. Twelve years after I began the experiment of living in an officially French province of Canada, I have learned a
This is the third of a three-part blog series contains excerpts from the book Guiding Teams to Excellence With Equity. In this post, author John Krownapple describes standards for culturally proficient facilitators of professional learning and organizational development. Read Part 1: The Need for Excellence
Over the last seventeen years in my roles as a gifted teacher and supervisor, I have often received emails like the following (a fictional composite): “I wanted to take the time to thank you for allowing my son Jordan to participate in the gifted program. Now
When one thinks of the word Conspiracy, without a doubt thoughts of evil plots and schemes easily come to mind. History is replete with examples of conspiracies designed to pervert justice, overthrow governments, and manipulate truth. Conspiracy, from the Latin word “conspirare” meaning “to agree
It is the last days of the election campaign and we should have a new president elect by the time this blog is published. The overall tone and content of political messaging throughout the campaign has questioned the integrity of each candidate’s respect for individual
The school systems in the United States have spent a lot of time and energy making sure things are equal. In today’s day and age of “everyone gets a trophy and don’t single any one out because it makes others feel bad,” what has happened