All teachers can be leaders
Sarah Reed, Kentucky's 2015 Teacher of the Year, says teachers' voices matter -- both in the classroom and in shaping public policy.
Data can help parents make sure their child stays on track
October is an important month in Kentucky education. It presents an opportunity for all of us to take a look at how our public schools, districts and students are performing.
Learning starts before children enter kindergarten
Making sure children are college and career ready begins at birth and involves the entire community. A new Kentucky Department of Education tool may be able to help.
New toolbox designed to help ensure school readiness
With the start of a new school year comes the first pages of a new chapter in the lives of 50,000 Kentuckians. It is a time for them to begin laying the foundation for a lifetime of exploration, learning and achievement.
Making time for teacher leadership
With endless to-do lists, it’s reasonable for teachers to hesitate in committing to any extra opportunities outside the classroom. Already over-committed, I contemplated applying to the Kentucky Network to Transform Teaching’s Classroom Teachers Enacting Positive Solutions (CTEPS) program.
Keep focus on ensuring Kentucky students are prepared for the future
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday In the coming weeks, more than 650,000 public school students will fill the classrooms and hallways of Kentucky’s schools. It’s an exciting time of year for students, parents and educators. As has been our focus since the passage of Senate Bill 1 (2009), the 2015-16 school year will build on our efforts to move [...]
Teacher leadership is about growing our students
Heidi Givens By Heidi Givens Heidi.givens@Daviess.kyschools.us Teacher leadership is “the process by which teachers, individually and collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.” (York-Barr and Duke, 2004) When selected as 2013 Kentucky Elementary Teacher of the Year, I [...]
Teachers’ voices make a difference
Terry Holliday A guiding principle for our work in Kentucky is that we do the hard work of reform WITH teachers and not TO teachers. What does this principle look like in practice? In 2011, Kentucky implemented the TELL Kentucky Survey to allow teacher voice on key working conditions such as facilities, resources, leadership, professional development, time, etc. [...]
Standards-Based Grading & PGES: The Perfect Connection
Natalie McCutchen By Natalie McCutchen natalie.mccutchen@simpson.kyschools.us Marie Montessori said the greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.” For the past few years, I have been working to make my students more self-sufficient and more independent thinkers who are engaged in their [...]
The freedom to make mistakes
David Grossman I still remember one of my first years teaching middle school science when my students conducted a lab and their data did not support the Law of Conservation of Mass. This was a big deal because the whole reason we were doing the lab was to learn or reinforce the Law of Conservation of Mass. That [...]