Category: achievement gap
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Leveled Reading Instruction Destroys Equity
Teaching students to read with instructional level reading groups keeps marginalized students marginalized. The system must be changed.
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Equity: Practice of Love and Inclusion
A rigorous education that ensures children at least master state standards is the expectation for every child in the United States. Our educational system in the United States has struggled since its very beginnings to include all children in a rigorous education. However, despite this struggle, dedicated educators and parents have never given up on…
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Science of Reading: Will We Ever Learn?
States and school districts are ‘adopting the Science of Reading’ (Schwartz, 2025) as the basis of their early reading programs while critics, such as this recent opinion in the Wall Street Journal, are already saying it doesn’t work despite the incredible results Mississippi schools have achieved using their adopted Science of Reading program. Is this…
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Equity is Crucial for Student Success
Equity in schools means providing every student with whatever they need to succeed; to master their state standards. This concept requires understanding that some students will need more because they start further back from what the standards require than others. Every student has hurdles to learning, however, some have many more hurdles than others. It…
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Equity is Acting Humanely
Some people in today’s political discourse treat equity like a dirty word. Something to be avoided. They claim that equity gives an unfair advantage to some people over others and therefore we must get rid of equity. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Equity is doing whatever it takes to ensure everyone reaches a…
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Educators Standing Up for All Students
In these turbulent times educators are prevailing over chaos and working relentlessly to ensure all students are educated to high levels. We celebrate them for their fearless and tireless commitment to their students. The past three months have been more chaotic for educators than normal. Educators face challenges each day as they work to ensure…
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More Trauma for Students
Some of our country’s most marginalized students are once again dealing with trauma that significantly interferes with their learning. As federal agents ramp up raids on immigrants, tensions have heighted in minority communities, schools, churches, hospitals, and many places of business. News media is already sharing stories of citizens caught up in these raids due…
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The System Is Designed for Poor Student Achievement
The system is perfectly designed to achieve the results we are getting. Have you heard that sentiment before? If you are an educator, you mostly likely have heard a similar statement when talking about student achievement results or continuous improvement planning. Public education in our country is largely designed to sort students and provide differing…
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Heroic Educators Do Whatever It Takes
It is that time of the year when schools start the new school year. Many students look forward to this exciting new beginning and prepare with new school clothes and supplies. They look forward to meeting their new teachers and reconnecting with their friends and all the fun extracurricular activities. There are also students who…
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Equity in Education: Overcoming Barriers of Poverty for Student Success
The multitude of barriers, created by poverty, to achieving an rigorous education must be overcome in order to have equity in schools. Many years ago, I was principal of a very large elementary school in a midwestern city. It was the only non-housing structure in the neighborhood. There were no other services in that neighborhood:…