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It's easy to dismiss what transpires in the nation's largest school district as an aberration because of its sheer size. But I believe that the latest remarks by Mayor Michael Bloomberg happen to have relevance to districts across the U.S. For the second time in a year, he suggested that some parents don't understand the value of education ("Mayor Michael Bloomberg says many parents don't know or don't care that their kids skip school," New York Daily News, May 11).

Imagine a world that goes something like this: To succeed according to societal norms of success, you must learn to do some things that are impossible. Yes, that's right, I said impossible. And yet, somehow, you attempt the challenge because, after all, it's the only way to succeed according to societal norms. And we all know how important success is.

While teacher satisfaction has declined to its lowest point in more than two decades, parent engagement is climbing to new heights across America, a new survey reports.

"The teachers with higher job satisfaction are likelier to report greater involvement of parents and their schools in coming together to improve the learning and success of students."

TED, the organization known for its short, thought-provoking videos, began a new channel dedication to education today. It’s called TED-ED. Here’s how it describes the initiative:

 

It offers up original video content that marries the talent of great teachers with top animators to bring concepts like neuroscience to life in in short videos, typically 5 minutes long….Through its open submission process, animators and educators from around the globe can contribute lesson plans and video reels on any topic…Select lesson submissions will be matched with chosen visualizers to create video lessons worth learning, watching, and sharing.

All kidding aside, it's great that Lady Gaga is striving to reduce the serious problem of bullying in schools, especially for LBGT youth. She has a true passion and commitment to protecting children, and to reducing violence and abuse, that I absolutely applaud.

  

I want to speak to you today not about Lady Gaga's advocacy, but rather about well-intentioned advocacy that goes awry.

Today's guest contributor is Shelly Sanchez Terrell, a teacher trainer, author and international speaker. Shelly is an experienced educator with many years in the field. She'll share with us the importance of making parents our partners in their child's educational journey.

The late Kingman Brewster, president of Yale University, once said,  "Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession."  We laugh at bizarre excesses, such as "kinetic wellness" to mean "gym class" (true example!)  but jargon has a darker implication: buzzwords can be well-chosen  to mask a truth that the uninitiated may find distasteful.  Here is a quick guide (with a healthy dose of dry humor) of some  of the wonderful-sounding phrases used in schools.

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. 

 

  All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher,  home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge. 

Arne observed the faculty there is “absolutely committed to making sure that every student fulfills their academic and social potential.” When Alexa asked the students on the panel what makes special education students so successful at Wilde Lake, one student shared that the cultural stigma of being a special ed student had been eliminated and declared that it had been taken over by the notion that, “I am a student!” We know that Wilde Lake takes this belief very seriously, as more than 90 percent of their students spend more than 80 percent of the school day in a general education setting.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan paid a visit to Wilde Lake High School Tuesday and called the Columbia school a microcosm of the educational world: diverse and inclusive.

 

Duncan and Assistant Secretary of Education Alexa Posny joined Wilde Lake Principal James LeMon and school system Director of Special Education Patty Daley in a round table discussion. They questioned a panel of about 20 students, parents, school staff and Howard County Public School System staff about inclusive practices for special needs students at the school.

IN recent years, we’ve been treated to reams of op-ed articles about how we need better teachers in our public schools and, if only the teachers’ unions would go away, our kids would score like Singapore’s on the big international tests. There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.

Starting Tuesday, the store, which is located just inside the main Big Sky doors, will begin selling clothing, jewelry, shoes, toys, games and various knickknacks to the general public and Big Sky students while giving real-world business experience to vocational-education students at the school. Its grand opening begins at 3 p.m., and the store will be open until 8:30 p.m.

       

Most, but not all, of its student-employees are children with special needs.

As children around the country settle in for the new school year, millions of them are sharing more than desks, sandwiches and sniffles. Chances are good that they are being taught by teachers with little or no experience.  

   

The odds that a child will be taught by a new teacher have increased dramatically over the past two decades. In 1987-'88, the most common level of experience among the nation's 3 million K-12 public school teachers was 14 years in the classroom.  By 2007-'08, students were most likely to encounter a teacher with just one or two years of experience.

This morning, I read an article online at Education Week titled, "Where Are the Autism Teaching Competencies?" ⁽¹⁾  This commentary calls attention to the fact that only a few states have set forth autism competencies for teachers. What is most interesting is that a few states, both Virginia and California, have successfully this accomplished this task. Yet the majority of states haven't figured create or adapt currently existing autism teaching competencies.

The overwhelming majority of the nearly 76 million students in America’s schools and colleges spend most of the academic day in classrooms. That’s a problem because the classroom has been obsolete for several decades. That’s not just my opinion. It’s established science.

Four of the lowest-performing schools in Montana recently got some good news.

       

All four saw improvement in the annual state tests that measure how well 10th-graders are doing in math, reading and science, said Denise Juneau, state superintendent of public instruction.

There is an endless debate about why school kids in the Western world are falling behind everyone else. Some say it's a shameful lack of funding; others say kids these days are too lazy and too busy Twittering on their iPads about the Justin Biebers to learn calculus.

 

But there are actually things you can do to help kids learn that cost next to nothing. For instance, studies show that kids do better if you ...

"I came to the conclusion ... that No Child Left Behind has turned into a timetable for the destruction of American public education," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I had never imagined that the test would someday be turned into a blunt instrument to close schools — or to say whether teachers are good teachers or not — because I always knew children's test scores are far more complicated than the way they're being received today."

At the Henderson school, where up to 35 percent of the 228 students have a disability, there are two certified teachers in every classroom — one in general, elementary education and one in special education. The school’s academic philosophy is that “it’s not the students who are disabled, but the curriculum,’’ and that it is the job of teachers and administrators to help students learn through digital textbook readers, visual arts, or movement.

As technology evolves to customize education based on students’ strengths and weaknesses, assistive technologies typically used by students with special needs could also become powerful learning tools for the general student population, experts suggest.