Below is a rant I posted on Facebook the other night after learning that all of the effort put forth by my faculty to reimagine a social justice school of education and design a teacher education curriculum rooted in justice and equity would be usurped by a bureaucratic bumbling of the teacher “shortage” that… Read more »

Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee passed Scott Walker’s budget proposal dealing with teacher education on a 12- 4 party line vote.  While the entire proposal is a partisan disaster that continues the dismantling of Wisconsin’s public school system—one item is worth highlighting. 45. Alternative Teacher Preparation Program- Require the DPI to grant an initial teaching license… Read more »

Below is a letter that has been revised.  However, the message is appropriate for any supporter of public schools, professional teachers, and equity for all children. The original letter was sent to the state wide leaders of teacher education in Wisconsin.  The letter was written because of my adamant disapproval of toying with teacher licenses even… Read more »

“Teachers are leaving the classrooms in droves all across the state and enrollment in teacher education programs is plummeting. We have a teacher exodus problem. Our elected officials will use this as evidence of a “teacher shortage” and then lower standards and allow a warm body approach to classroom staffing. There is no “shortage.” Those… Read more »

The edTPA is supposed to be a performance based assessment that can help predict the effectiveness of future teachers.  For one of the best analysis of edTPA and how it correlates to effectiveness please read Peter Greene’s post from May 2016. So why kill it?  Because even though Peter thoroughly dismantled the edTPA; it continues to… Read more »

One of the greatest education news stories of the year occurred a week ago here in Colorado and it was untold. This is the story of a fake graduate program getting approved by the Colorado Commission of Higher Education. CCHE has approved that non-educators trained by non-educators can be “certified” teachers who are in charge… Read more »

In 2011 I posted the blog below and ticked off some of my teacher education colleagues.  I received messages and notes and voice mails that proclaimed that speaking out in ways that are not “civil” does nothing but hurt our movement. Well check it out and judge for yourself.   HELP! Where are all the credible… Read more »

Since posting my blog yesterday some people have taken offense to the fact that I satirized Governor Walker’s proposal to allow “real life experience” and the passing of a simple test to become a teacher in Wisconsin. What if I said this: We have absolutely no need for this proposal. If you have a degree… Read more »

Let’s see, we barely made it through the AB 1 fiasco last week.  We still have the weekend to craft pointed and evidenced based arguments (a common core standard) to level at SB 1 and now today Governor Walker hits us with, Gov. Scott Walker is proposing an alternative pathway for people to become licensed as teachers… Read more »