Category Archives: Uncategorized

Luna’s Reform Proposals

As we go into Idaho’s 2011 legislative session, Superintendent Tom Luna proposes a major overhaul of public education in Idaho. Prominent features are larger classes and fewer teachers for next year. He says this will be made feasible by giving … Continue reading

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Senior Project Inception

The next two days, 12/8&9/2010, I will return to Nampa High School to evaluate Senior Project Presentations, as I have continued to do since retirement. Earlier this semester, in correspondence with colleagues at NHS, I was asked how the Senior … Continue reading

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Teacher Evaluation, contd.

A friend writes concerning the problem of employee evaluation in her field, nursing. But I suspect that evaluation is less of a problem for nurses if only because I imagine that in nursing there is more general agreement on what … Continue reading

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Grading the Teachers, part 2

The L. A. Times published the school district’s test scores by teacher, by name, on or about August 14, 2010. The picture accompanying the article was of John Smith, a “bad” teacher. This struck me at the time as being … Continue reading

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Teachers as Writers

Once upon a time, a decade or few ago, the constituency of public schools considered it important for us English teachers to teach kids to write coherent, meaningful, and reasonably correct English prose. In those halcyon days of yore, we … Continue reading

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Raw Milk

As I wrote this (now some days ago) I was listening to an NPR news story about the Raw Milk Revolution, and government suppression of it by force of arms – it seems that armed federal officers destroyed inventories  of … Continue reading

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