The $125,000 Answer

“…because they’re worth it.  Because teachers are the key, and if we can pay them this with the existing dollars, then why aren’t we doing it?”  (Zeke Vanderhoek, principal and founder, TEP Charter School)

That quote silenced the conversations at my apartment for 15 minutes this past Sunday; my mother had come down for the weekend to settle in to her spring break and also recover from the hardships of being a high-quality Wisconsin educator.  Following a fantastic meal, we were getting ready to watch one of my favorite guilty pleasures, when we heard the above quote from a 60 Minutes story on the TEP Charter School in New York.

Read More

Knowledge is Power (or Kryptonite?)

With the help a few deep breaths and some quality coffee I sat down to watch “Waiting For Superman” this past weekend.  This was a complex task, on one hand, a number of the points raised in this movie were correct, relevant, and detrimental to public education.  On the other side of this coin were contradictions, flawed logic, and structured logic that was not followed through to find a concrete solution to our problems in education.

Out of all of the thoughts and ideas running through my head, one has stuck out the most.  Here’s what the movie had to say:

Read More

Christmas in March

In celebration of today's new blanket of snow.  Enjoy!

 

I may need to try the old Volume Knob decrescendo technique in the future. 

Read More

Trapped in a Box

I (briefly) mentioned my mid-winter refresher in my last entry but I’m afraid that was quickly squelched this past Monday thanks to 50 8^th graders with brass noisemakers.  (or was it?)  For my 8^th grade band, this past Monday was particularly… Monday; their sound was poor and their preparedness was even poorer, and I had to be the bad guy and tell them this.  So needless to say, today’s rehearsal was not one that I was looking forward to, until my drive to work today…

Read More