Something I shared on my Instagram story last week got more engagement than posts about my new kittens, my latest book, or my toddler’s antics. It was this: That statistic clearly resonates across industries, but I cannot stop thinking about how deeply it applies to schools. At most schools, teachers are expected to do far more than teach their three or four daily classes. Beyond instruction, they grade assignments, design assessments, analyze student data, and provide indivi

Today's   NAEP update  was a powerful reminder that the status quo of how we've been teaching reading for the past decade or more, is not working. As a nation, we need and must do better to reach struggling readers. I was reminded of an experience I had working with a school principal a couple of weeks ago. I'm new to working with her, coaching a few teachers at her school. On my first day leading coaching meetings, she had me work out of her office while she worked in the ba

I had the opportunity to visit an alternative high school a few weeks ago. It was a small school set in an urban community on the east coast, designated by the district to serve especially vulnerable students. During the visit, I worked with a team of educators to observe classes; review student learning samples; interview students, teachers, and faculty; and ultimately provide a reflection for the school leaders to affirm their strengths and support them with guidance to mov

(repost from Uncommon Sense Blog, written by Amy Parsons on 10/1/2021) In Jerard Walker’s essay, Dragon Slayers (The Iowa Review, 2006), Walker reflects on his journey as a black professor who realizes that black literature is too often approached as a record of oppression. After deep introspection, he designed his classes to challenge that narrative with a focus on the flip side: black courage and heroism. The dragon slayers, not the dragons, he notes. Much like Professor Walk