Coming Soon To A Blog Near You...

Beginning Tuesday, May 17, and hopefully continuing every Tuesday thereafter, I’ll be posting a new addition to the blog, tentatively titled “Letter From the Teacher.” Regular readers know that my day job is teaching high school English. Yes, I am a defender of the mother tongue. Yesterday I could not spell English teacher and today I are one!

Few people would think that they know more than a doctor or even a plumber or electrician about their business, yet everyone, it seems, knows just what is wrong with education and just how to fix it. I suspect that this is because most Americans had 12 years of experience in the public schools and that familiarity breeds a certain amount of comfort, for the truth is, most Americans were--and are--well served by their schools. Yet many, when confronted with headlines that scream that American schools are horrible failures, tend to reflexively agree. It’s rather like congressmen: many Americans think they’re all crooks and incompetents, except for their Congressman.

In the coming weeks, I’ll discuss and hopefully provide some thoughtful commentary on many educational issues, such as:

Why most of what you hear in the media about America’s schools is wrong.

Why mandatory high-stakes testing is not only harmful to children, but insanely expensive and wasteful.

What a teacher’s real job is and why it’s irrational to believe that they can be held fully accountable for student performance on tests.

What political correctness is doing to education (it’s not good).

Why prayer has never been removed from the schools, and can’t be.

Who is really running our schools and their mindsets.

How sports do less--and more--than you would expect in our schools.

Why good administrators can fire bad teachers while upholding everyone’s rights, and why bad administrator’s can’t and won’t.

Why public schools really are a good idea.

I’ll look forward to seeing you on Tuesdays, and as always, to your comments.