Survey: Teachers work 53 hours per week on average
by Valerie Strauss
This was written by Francie Alexander, chief academic officer for Scholastic, Inc. She has has taught at all levels, was a district reading consultant for Pre-K through high school, and has authored numerous professional articles for educators and dozens of books for children.
By Francie Alexander
Teaching is a much talked about yet often misunderstood profession. Educators frequently hear well-meaning comments from parents and friends like “It must be so sweet to spend your days with children” or “How wonderful to be done for the day by three o’clock.” Are they serious?
Teaching is joyous, but it is also hard work! It is fast-paced, multi-faceted, and complex. I should know. I spent many years as a teacher and it is the hardest and most satisfying work I’ve ever done.
A new report from Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
A new poverty-doesn’t-really-matter-much argument
by Valerie Strauss
And so the poverty-doesn’t-really-matter-in-student-achievement drumbeat keeps getting louder, most unfortunately.
This time we hear it in the new edition of the magazine Education Next, in an article called “ Neither Broad Nor Bold,” by Harvard’s Paul E. Petersen. He attacks a school reform effort called the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education but manages to mischaracterize it, and he savages a speech and an op-ed by a Duke University professor — all the while accusing her of saying things she didn’t say.
Modern school reformers reflexively label anybody who refuses to ignore the consequences of living in poverty on student achievement as “defenders of the status quo,” or worse. They insist that schools can largely overcome the outside influences that affect how a student does in class, and say there isn’t research that shows health clinics and other social services contribute to student achievement. But they never quite explain how a teacher is supposed to help a student who is exhausted,
