I sat in a coffee shop on the east side of the river with a friend, a guy from Santa Cruz who had made a little independent movie I had a part in. He was a 30-something snowboarder-type, creative and hard-working, and his eyes glazed over when the subject of Bill… Read full post »

Governor Kitzhaber's Education PRE-form?

Thank God Mr. Saxton is capable of telling the truth: He didn't sign up to reinforce Oregon's current level of below-average schools and above-average PERS millionaires.

The hypothetical goal of graduating more students WILL BE MET because administrators will… Read full post »

Re: "How do we fairly measure teacher performance?" by R.P. "Joe" Smith

Hey, Joe:  The metrics are vague here, counselor. Would the evaluators be using a continuum? Ordinal numbers? Are values weighted? I mean, was the teacher deemed VERY EAGER, or just EAGER, to "receive and try new ideas… Read full post »

I remember when "Slick Rick" Pitino first arrived in Kentucky to coach the Wildcats. He appeared in a commercial on top of the Paul Miller Ford dealership in a long shot on a windy day and, as the camera zoomed in, he spoke defiantly in "New Yawker" directly to us rednecks:… Read full post »

"Hope has two daughters: Anger and Courage." Saroyan

To Jerome Colonna, BSD supt (ret.)

Jerry,

I m reading that the Westview ball field is undergoing some cosmetic repairs. You helped them get that field: Westview and Southridge will both sport new turf fields for the fall season  

by… Read full post »

The Jeremy Lin phenomenon is thought-provoking for a lot of reasons.

Public education is under fire as wasteful and ineffective...and a lot of support is available for those kinds of arguments.

Evaluating teachers and testing students and holding administrators accountable are all on the table. To wh… Read full post »

"Beaverton School Board has a Full Agenda..." by Wendy Owen The Oregonian

Like a family torn by unspoken shame, the Beaverton School Board will assemble publicly and behave as if all is well at home. A brave public face.

These folks, with vast influence and power over the livelihoods of so… Read full post »

Re: "School reform: Real work begins after feds reject Oregon's plans"

by Susan Nielsen, associate editor  The Oregonian Feb 16 2012

Ms. Nielsen is doing something that Oregon's Fourth Estate should have been doing for a long time. Too many schools in Oregon are top-heavy and overload… Read full post »

Re: "Behind Portland's dropout rate"  Oregonian editorial board Jan 31, 2011

*First, drop your defenses.

*Second, publish all the data, even the embarrassing stuff.

*Third, build a district-wide strategy that is grounded in the individual relationships between adults and students.

In th… Read full post »

1. To change, we have to be different. 

2. No one at the top is letting go easily. The phrase "mired in mediocrity" comes to mind.

3. We need something new.

4. We can't afford anything new, so we have to divide the "old" and let one part become "new."

5.… Read full post »

Re: "Oregon schools: Floating on Lake Wobegon, soaked by the facts"  January 22, 2012 by Susan Nielsen The Oregonian

They say there are two kinds of people: Scouts and settlers. If that is true, I would fall into the first category. Licensed to teach English in four states and a sign… Read full post »

According to the NYT, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg "fixed their sights Monday on a shared opponent: what they derided as New York State’s education bureaucracy."

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, declared that we have to realize that "our schools are not an employment program' and… Read full post »

"Alas," the school boards sigh.../"It's for the children!" they cry... /Then pay the lawyers to lie.

The Beaverton, Oregon (District 48) School Board got pretty famous for a while, with Nike moving in and all. Some of those folks became local celebrities. Same with some of the BSD superintendents at… Read full post »

To Oregon Senator Suzanne Bonamici,

I have not received any correspondence from you in a long time and I have no way of knowing if you or Mr. Atkins read my frequent emails.  I am sure enough of them have seemed “heated” for you to be disinclined but I assure you… Read full post »

Letter from the editorial board of the Oregonian: " A Window into PERS"

When I read the editorial board's article about PERS, I first reacted with appreciation for clever use of the extended metaphor ("window...blinds" in the title lines),

Then I thought about the importance of what these w… Read full post »

Fernandez is like another administrator brought to the Portland area from Texas (why is Oregon finding BOTH football players AND school officials south of the Red River?) only to have their welcome wear out after a short, high-paid run.

"Portland schools' defense in lawsuit: Incompetence, not discrim… Read full post »

One of the most important things: You really need the kids' cooperation if you're gonna have a successful class/team experience--so your approach should reflect that awareness.

Also, aft… Read full post »

"Retired Beaverton School Superintendent Jerry Colonna travels to China, Africa" Wendy Owen

Mr. Colonna padded his retirement with 8 years in a school district where he couldn't get fired (remember he followed Yvonne "Kickback" Katz, who didn't last fifteen minutes in suburban Texas after leaving B't… Read full post »

The USA Today is boldly doing a number* on the gods of college coaching, that pantheon of Ego and Money. Quick self-awareness quiz: Who among us would not behave as many of them behave, given the influence and power they wield? Considering the incredible rock star status these big time coaches/… Read full post »

A courteously composed letter to the Oregonian from Rex Hagans, the founder of Save our Schools, poses (and answers...sort of) five questions under a headline about "sweeping reform."

The "sweeping" that takes place in the state's education bureaucracy is a verb, not an adjective, and describes… Read full post »

After working 70-hour weeks for poorly supervised principals, I finally pissed them off sufficiently when I made a bold statement to then-new superintendent Colonna and the asst. superintendent Dr. Tom Greene: "She may have even deserved the part" about the CEO of the school districts' fundraising… Read full post »

"Journalism ethics: Bloggers have same responsibility to report truth" by Cynthia-Lou Coleman.

Ms. Coleman laments a lapse of ethics in cyberspace, though such ethics exist nowhere else in our biosphere. The blogger in question, Crystal Cox, is not publicly committed to "ferreting"--she is a wronged… Read full post »