mortiz050

On this day when budget cuts were due to be translated into pick slips delivered to teachers in every school, the Senior High Alliance of Principals, Parents and Educators (SHAPPE) today delivered a carefully worded letter to the City Council. It called for Council hearings and closer oversight over DCPS to make up for a lack of central planning and accountability that schools need from the

Over the weekend City Councilmember David Catania revealed privately to "Teachers and Parents for..." member Kerry Sylvia that the purpose of the contrived budget cuts was to get principals to ID their least competent teachers for removal. Today the Washington Post announced the same thing in their lead editorial. So what's the problem with this?The problem is that the Chancellor has had more

DC teacher Dan Brown's September 18 Huffington Post article on the DCPS budget cut to schools hits the nail on the head. He explains why hiring 900 newbies over the summer and mass teacher layoffs in the fall is an ill conceived strategy.

Ten years working with students as a DCPS social worker and I can confidently say that David’s situation is not remarkable. Due to concerns about privacy I am not going to discuss specifics about his life but speak about typical circumstances of students like him.Who shares the blame for David being in the fifth grade and not being able to read? It is a multi-system failure starting with his

Only two days after Labor Day and the high stakes testing frenzy is in full swing across DC Public Schools. At my school students started the first day of the DC BAS today. It is not as long as DC CAS and is supposed to serve as a baseline to track student progress for the April tests.Without getting into all of the politics of standardized testing, I thought I would share my experience today