by David Safier (TASL) The Virtual Schools folks are nothing if not organized. They continue to fight the battle against state cuts to online school funding. Their latest salvo: An op ed in the Republic complaining that the legislature is planning to cut virtual school funding. The author, Ann Robinett, is the president of a … Read more
by David Safier Type the phrase, “No Child Left Inside” in Google, and you’ll find what appears to be a national movement to get our children in touch with the natural world. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has a No Child Left Inside site devoted to EE (Environmental Education). The Arizona Association for Environmental Education and … Read more
by David Safier When a Tucson elementary school has 70% minority students and 75% of the kids are on free or reduced lunch, and that school has the highest library checkout rate of any TUSD elementary school, you gotta figure someone’s doing something right. The school is Drachman Montessori Magnet School. Every year it has … Read more
by David Safier I wrote earlier about the $6 billion dollars the Feds wasted on its phonics-based, drill-and-kill Reading First program. The Department of Ed’s own study concluded that students in classrooms using the Reading First materials showed no more reading improvement than those who learned reading without the benefit of the $6 billion boondoggle. … Read more
by David Safier I’m no fan of Arizona’s AIMS testing or the whole No Child Left Behind emphasis on standardized testing. But I ran across an article about state testing of high school students who are taking vocational courses, and that’s standardized testing I can support. You’ve probably read that Arizona is working to revitalize … Read more