SchoolFinder Blog

The System of School

January 8, 2009 – 9:19 am by Brendan

From the Chicago Tribune Transformation of Chicago schools could be model for USBeing from the Chicago area I have read a lot of stories over the years about Arnie Duncan. I think this one sums him up pretty well. Basically, Arnie is a chief executive type. He believes in cutting costs, merit pay, and teaching to the test. On the other hand he also believes in strong local schools, mentors, and high quality teachers. Will he transform schools the way I want? I doubt it. Will he make small systematic improvements over the current administration? Probably.  It doesn't look like the NCLB testing idea is going away. It does however look like teachers and schools will have more resources with which to tackle these tests. This comment (below) on the ...

Posted in K-12 | 2 Comments »

School Socialization

January 5, 2009 – 2:48 pm by Brendan

The neighbor kids came around to visit today. (A boy age 5, two girls ages 7 and 9 and my oldest boy age 3. They all seem to like to teach him stuff, and he likes to learn.) The seven year old wanted to play teacher. Can you guess what happened then?   Yep, the other three had to sit in their desks and face the wall with the chalkboard. (Yes, we have chalkboards painted on the walls) Usually, they the neighbors love to teach him stuff, but never before did they use a school setting. I guess it was natural this time though, because part of what she wanted to teach was how school worked. It didn't go very well. She tried to teach, but they didn't ...

Posted in General, K-12 | 3 Comments »

Kyle Orton and Da Bears

December 26, 2008 – 9:37 am by Brendan

If you are not a Chicago Bears fan I will let you know a little secret, we cannot find a decent quarterback. Sid Luckman is our claim to fame. He played quarterback in the 1940's and won 3 championships.  Since then we won the championship in 1963, won the super bowl in 1985, and lost the super bowl in 2006. Billy Wade the quarterback in 1963 had a passer rating of 74 that year 2 points above his career stats of 72.2. He went 2-8 the next year was benched the second year and retired three years after winning the championship.  Jim McMahon, quarterback in 1985, had a passer rating of 82.6 that year 4.5 points above his career average. In his entire career he never ...

Posted in General, K-12 | No Comments »

Do You Get What You Pay For

December 12, 2008 – 10:20 am by Brendan

The rise of the Internet has lead to a rise in a lot of services that are free. It was a while ago, (I can't remember the article) that I read an article about how these companies can offer products for free. It basically boiled down to the fact that in the electronic world making copies is so cheap that it might as well be free. So giving away a copy for free is fine and you make your money back on volume somewhere else. Now I'm not an economist, but even I can see that could work fine if the product you create doesn't include upgrades or service. However the need to have a revenue stream is very important as well explained in this blog. There ...

Posted in K-12, News | No Comments »

Changing the Nature of Education

December 11, 2008 – 12:29 pm by Brendan

I have talked before about ways to fix education. It isn't easy. Usually as far as I'm concerned it will consist of raising teacher pay, making it easier to fire teachers with cause, and probably some sort of virtual schooling to allow students to take charge of their education (Florida virtual schools). Here is a thought on the future of higher education with a long follow up for K-12 education by Will Richardson. Of course I shouldn't be surprised the Dean Shareski also wrote a post on the subject also. My thought is; is this one of the possibilities of true change in the school system? If colleges and universities are willing to tender offers to professors that have been rated as better than their peers, why ...

Posted in General, K-12 | 1 Comment »

First Rule of Writing - Write

December 4, 2008 – 9:16 am by Brendan

It has been a while since my last post. Some days it is just difficult to find the time to write and lately it has been like that most days. I haven't stopped learning though. The great thing about being in education is that people expect you to spend part of time learning.Over the last few weeks I have done most of my learning through listening. I listen to the edtechtalk.com podcasts on a fairly regular basis. I listened and almost watched just about every presentation at k12online.com. And every time someone posts a link to an ongoing presentation I usually click on it. I listen to all of these streams for a couple of reasons: I like to hear what other people are doing. I can usually ...

Posted in General | No Comments »

Who Knew

November 21, 2008 – 5:47 am by Brendan

Last night I was looking through some bookmark tags on Delicious. For me bookmarks tend to come in waves and I don't always have time to organize them when I save them. You know you read a page and follow a link and that has three more links and that one has six more, next thing you know you've spent three hours following links and you have twenty five pages you want to save and hopefully read when you have time.I used to try to create folders and organize everything that way. The problem was I would end up with several folders with similar bookmarks or I couldn't remember where I put the bookmarks or whatever. So I've started to use delicious to tag my ...

Posted in K-12 | No Comments »

High School Hazing at New Heights

November 19, 2008 – 4:46 pm by Kim

Seven cheerleaders from Morton Ranch High School were indicted yesterday on class B misdemeanor charges for hazing. If the girls are convicted, they face a punishment ranging from probation to a maximum of six months in jail and a fine of $2,000. All this for hazing? Isn’t hazing supposed to be a fun tradition of welcoming new members onto a team and a means of group bonding? Well, it doesn’t appear to be as much fun when you consider the circumstances, as several junior varsity cheerleaders were blindfolded, their hands and mouths bound with duct tape and pushed into a swimming pool. It gets worse, too. As if possibly drowning were not enough, one of the varsity cheerleaders pulled soiled underwear over the heads of several younger cheerleaders. ...

Posted in General, K-12, News, Sports | 1 Comment »

What Is Wrong With Schools?

November 19, 2008 – 6:49 am by Brendan

Here in the United States we have many schools that are as good as or better than any school in the world. We also have many schools that are at the bottom of the barrel. Of course, we are a first world nation. There are many countries where school is a luxury that the majority of the population just can't afford. For the majority of the population around the world, going to school is something that does not happen on a regular basis. For the majority of the population around the world education is something you fight for, not something you have a right to. The question is will the next great improvement in education come from scholars in the Western World or will it come from ...

Posted in K-12 | No Comments »

The future is now

November 11, 2008 – 6:00 am by Brendan

According to this article a new law that takes effect in Florida next year will require all school districts to create virtual schools. Is it the future of school? Well it is and it isn't. I definitely see more "regular" students taking classes online. I see more "regular" schools offering classes online. This program however, seems more like a cost saving measure than a school improvement measure. One of the surprising lessons of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations was that small schools aren't always better than large schools. Yes, smaller class sizes and more individual attention can help student enormously, but small schools means less variety. It turns out that in large schools you get more options. Take for example a small high school of 400 people. ...

Posted in K-12, News | 1 Comment »