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Over the past five years — at the request of concerned independent school educators, and with funding from independent schools and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health — we've conducted extensive research on the experiences of African-American students in independent schools.

Last year's report and conversation around the need for affinity group dialogue with the administrative team included statistics and plenty of personal and national stories pointing to the importance of addressing race/culture and learning, particularly as it relates to a discussion around whiteness and the culture of "niceness" within our schools. This article is 8 years old and not much has changed at many schools. Thanks for reading it! Please pass along to your team colleagues if you can?

Why is the change in this area so slow?

This is an interesting program that just launched - a peer to peer school of ed.

You won't find Willyn Webb telling her high school students to put away their cell phones, even though they are technically banned in her Colorado district. She's been using cell phones to augment her lessons at Delta County Opportunity School for years.

Teachers talk about this problem from a 'restrictive" perspective, can it be a learning tool?

Greg Kulowiec has done some great work with cell phones in his classroom. You can learn more on his blog: http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/ Specifically, he has used them for blogging and as a student response tool: http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/search?q=cell+phones

"curiosity is both intrinsic to children's development and unfolds through social interactions. Thus, it should be cultivated in schools, even though it is often almost completely absent from classrooms."

When Greg Sumlin looks at the incoming kindergarten class at East Elementary School in Littleton, he sees a group of English learners who need immediate, intensive instruction - in small classes where teachers can give them individual attention.

An online article in CNET news on social networking, advantages for schools. Why not work with school communities to solve the issues of concern instead of walling students out from participating in a global network.

The NY Times has launched a new section discussing NYC schools. Some interesting info in here.

Thanks for this resource Beth. I have an interest in this work. Bob

Published Online: September 1, 2011 By Allan Odden and Lawrence O. Picus, Phi Delta Kappan Education budgets are imploding at the fiscal seams. A sluggish economy and falling property values are shortchanging public education budgets across the country. At the same time, there are growing expectations for improved student performance, better teachers and closing the achievement gap. Interesting article about changing the face of schools and teacher performance in the absence of or with declining revenues. A good article to review with some other good resources.

LOS ALTOS, Calif. - The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. But the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud.

What a great math hook for a middle school class! Thx to John Burk for the lead!

This is so great! What a fun teacher! Great way to talk about proportions. Love the terminology and the kids using the language, "can we rank their mulletude"? Hey, did the better looking mullets have a Business to Party (or Party to Business?) ratio that was, "Golden"?

"So, learning math is somewhat like learning to read: we can do it, but it takes time and effort, and requires mastering increasingly complex skills and con- tent. Just about everyone will get to the point where they can read a serious newspaper, and just about everyone will get to the point where they can do high school-level algebra and geometry-even if not everyone wants to reach the point of comprehending James Joyce's Ulysses or solving partial differential equations."

Excellent post that argues schools have responsibility to share their innovations with wider world. 

really great blog post from Make on developing a curriculum for school of toys.