In 2001, Pennsylvania enacted a masterful piece of legislation to allow funding to assist the children of qualifying families to attend faith-based or private schools. Rather than a “voucher” system, which directs funds collected from the State government to schools willing to accept the amount as payment in full for the child to attend a…
Category: edu-cat-ion
Stop Crushing the Spirits of Young Teachers
Several years ago, a disturbing trend began to happen in education – teachers were leaving the field. Not the teachers that had reached retirement age, or who were offered early retirement packages, but young teachers, who were those enticed to enter the field because of the market. A little earlier in time, the media shed…
Tax Credits For Private and Faith-Based Based Education: Lessons From Pennsylvania
Some people believe that tax credits and vouchers are the same thing when it comes to new ways of funding education. They’re not. While they both have an effect on the State’s budget, the source and processes regarding those funds are completely different. With vouchers, state monies go directly to benefit families who would qualify…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Pray For It: Part 5.5 of 5
To be clear, this doesn’t mean that there should be prayer in public schools. Actually, if the local community wants prayer to be present “in” the public school, it should be allowed…but that’s another topic for another article. Regardless of if prayer is or isn’t permitted in the school, the school and its students should…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Kids Need to Be Read To: Part 5 of 5
One of my earliest childhood memories was snuggling up to my mom on the couch on Sunday mornings. She would read the comics to me. It didn’t matter that I may not have understood the humor the cartoonist was presenting, because mom would explain what was going on in the pictures. I still remember bringing…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Reading, Writing and “Teching”: Part 4 of 5
You may think the title of this article has the word “teaching” spelled incorrectly. That assumption would be incorrect. “Teching” was a termed coined in the early video game era, but some folks started to use it regarding the increasing utilization of technology. Today, most children “tech” for enjoyment…alright, young adults do too, as evidenced…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Play Physical Games (Not Just Virtual Ones): Part 3 of 5
When I was a teacher, all ten of us – one teacher for each home room (K-8), and yours truly who taught 7th and 8th grade science and health, 8th grade algebra, and instrumental music – had recess duty once a week every other week. Kids played. It was not structured. It was not attuned…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Kids Need to Play a Musical Instrument: Part 2 of 5
Recently, I met a gentleman who told me he played in a band for 19 years, and made 3 records. He loves music, and is grateful to his dad for “making” him learn a musical instrument – even though when he was young, he hated it…especially when his friends were outside playing baseball and street…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Kids Need to Sing: Part 1 of 5
I’m sure you’ve heard the argument that students in faith-based schools academically outperform public school students because of small class sizes. Let’s debunk that myth here and now by going back to 1965…almost 50 years ago. The 1st grade at St. Albert the Great School in Baldwin Boro (a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA) had approximately…
Continuous Improvement ≠ Transformational Innovation (or, 5 Things We Must Do To Improve Education) – Introduction
I’ve succeed in finding something that does not exist in some computer coding languages – the “does not equal” sign. ≠ needs to be found somewhere, then pasted in as a character. There are suggestions in several coding forums regarding what can be used, such as -=, which is the negation of the equal sign, !=…
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