It is at best disingenuous, and at worst, hypocritical, to pretend that we did not know poor children and children of color were deliberately getting a much worse education than their white, middle and upper class counterparts until we had stacks of standardized testing data to confirm it.

The teaching profession is embattled on many fronts; fighting with our students shouldn't have to be one of them. Jose Vilson's important take on that point, When Teachers and Students Fight is something everyone should read and consider. He notes:

We still have school environments that, despite some adults’ best efforts, feel unsafe, hostile, dangerous. The solution, as far as I can tell, isn’t more police officers or security.

Many of us have learned the power of being connected to other educators via networks. How can that power develop exponentially if networks connected? What does it take to make those connections?

Is the wave of post-TFA community activism something to cheer or fear?

It's what we do to students and teachers with standardized testing in the name of improving education that's scandalous, and it is not surprising that this misuse of testing has led to scenarios such as those in Atlanta and other places.

I've made myself all kinds of paper, post-it, and digital notes to participate as much as possible in this year's

The recent PDK/Gallup poll includes some significant findings that reveal how the public views teachers.

More than 80% of those surveyed believe...

Whatever the teachers’ intentions, their visual message had to be disturbing to many of their Black and Hispanic students. Is this school or jail?

Should new teachers be required to do residencies, similar to med school grads, before they can become practicing teachers of record?

This guest blog originally appeared as a series of comments on one of the discussion threads here in the Collaboratory about teacher evaluation and effective teaching. I thought these ideas deserved broader discussion, so I invited Carl Draeger to share them here on TeachMoore.