Service-Learning and Innovation in Columbus, OH

By Kevin Hart
Disciplina in civitatem – Education for citizenship. The official motto for Ohio State University is taking on a new, stronger meaning for public school students in Columbus, OH, thanks to a grant designed to help priority school students excel at learning and serving their communities.
Last week, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel was in Columbus for [...]

Following the Educator Leaders in Adrian, MI

A few days after learning that Adrian (MI) High School was eligible for a School Improvement Grant, school district Superintendent Chris Timmis called Adrian Education Association president Jeff Condon.  In the Adrian Daily Telegram, Erik Gable writes, “the two talked several times a week from that point onward. ‘I think that has allowed for the [...]

Denver Priority School Gets Presidential Treatment

By Kevin Hart
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel conducted a nationwide back-to-school tour from August 23-27, meeting innovative educators and touring priority schools throughout the country. One of his first stops was at Denver’s Math and Science Leadership Academy (MSLA), a union-designed, teacher-led public school that is making a difference for urban students within [...]

Can Teacher Power Save Schools?

By Alain Jehlen
In a sunny courtyard at Los Angeles’ sprawling Jefferson High School, three freshmen girls are writing a radio script about a tornado.
Teacher Nicolle Fefferman has asked her class to write scripts about being caught in a natural disaster. The girls’ plot line: They’re having a party to celebrate wonderful news when a tornado [...]

Unions Help Build Bridge Between Home and School

By Dana Fisher and Kevin Hart
Parents and caregivers are truly our students’ first teachers – and school districts across the country are finding that getting parents more involved in their local schools can have a significant, lasting effect on student achievement. The National Education Association and its affiliates have been leading the effort to enhance parent and community [...]

The Power to Transform Schools

By Mary Ellen Flannery

What happens when you give educators power? What happens when you let them decide how to spend their school’s budget or schedule their students’ time?
Good things, it turns out.
“My kids love coming to school,” says Las Vegas fifth-grade teacher Nadia DeLeon. And not only that, but they’re reading, writing and performing math [...]

How the Union Helps Build a Better School

In every corner of Putnam City West High School in Oklahoma City, somebody is doing something to close achievement gaps. Whether it’s (shhh!) benchmark testing in a dark computer lab, or (Bravo! Bravo!) on-stage rehearsals for Cinderel la, where students have long known that princesses need not be White, every inch of this campus has been dedicated to squeezing shut those gaps.

Teacher Evaluation: Developing Models and Policies to Improve Teacher Practice

This power point presentation titled: Teacher Evaluation: Developing Models and Policies to Improve Teacher Practice provide a medley of information surrounding teacher evaluation processes. This includes common elements need in a teacher evaluation system, teacher evaluation measures, the two components of assessment and evaluation: formative assessment and summative evaluation, fundamental considerations for teachers evaluation measures, [...]

Pilot School Charts New Course in Colorado

By Kevin Hart
It’s 10 a.m. on a Thursday, and the students of William Smith High School in Aurora, CO, are on the move – literally. Woody Dodd’s U.S. history students are recreating the 1965 marches in Selma, AL, altering the words to the civil rights tune Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round. 
One by one, [...]

Union-Led Conference Targets Family Engagement in Schools

By Stacey Grissom
The Tennessee Education Association in partnership with the National Education Association and 22 other organizations in the state, hosted the Tennessee Family/School/Community Engagement Summit this month,  a dialogue on policy and practice for improving family engagement in schools.  
A former Nashville elementary school converted to a professional development center was the site of the [...]

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