My school district paid BIG money to a motivational speaker to “motivate” teachers. He was awful. This is how clueless many districts are. Teachers don’t need motivational speeches. They need support, accountability, and fewer distractions from actually teaching.

RT @_wej01: My high school AP English teacher bought me a suit and gave me gas money so I could afford to attend a merit scholarship interv…

Well said. And @NCTQ 's release on June 9th will shed more light on this topic.

Hot take: The reading crisis isn’t just in K-12 classrooms. It starts in colleges of education. Teachers can’t teach what they were never taught. New episode 🔥: youtu.be/cUB17SvjBYA?si=uh5H… @voiceadvocacy @KJWinEducation @FulcrumLiteracy

Respect to Phelan for choosing the Constitution over pressure. That’s exactly the kind of leadership public service demands

“Fifteen years. Thirteen million students. Not a single high-quality, independent study showing i-Ready improves learning.” And in Georgia? We kept it on the approved list…because it’s widely used. That’s not evidence-based leadership. That’s lowering the bar for kids. We should demand better. @georgiadeptofed @GwinnettSchools @DDGA13 open.substack.com/pub/thedig…

If behavior is the #1 reason teachers want to leave the profession, parents must ask themselves what part of that is on them? Can't bang the table for parental rights and then take no responsibility for student behavior. Plenty of kids behave well. But too many do not.

I visited a school that turned around. Went from struggling to thriving. Teachers don't make lesson plans. They focus on internalization and the art of teaching. I've learned not to argue with results. Study it.

Kid: 'It hurts my ears.' Adult: 'They're just loud.' 13yo Nora: 880 measurements later → 'You were right.' Published. Cited. Game-changer. Never dismiss a child's 'ouch.'

Nora Keegan was not trying to change public health policy. She was just paying attention. In elementary school in Calgary, she noticed something adults kept dismissing. Children rushing out of public restrooms. Hands clamped over their ears. Faces tense. Complaints whispered between friends. It hurts my ears. She felt it too. After using hand dryers, her ears rang. The sound lingered. Adults brushed it off. They are just loud. That is what machines do. But Nora kept wondering why children reacted so strongly. And more importantly, why no one was measuring it. In fifth grade, she decided to find out. With the help of her parents, both physicians, she turned curiosity into research. She borrowed professional sound equipment. She designed an experiment. And then she went where the problem lived. Public bathrooms. Over two years, she visited forty four restrooms across Alberta. Libraries. Restaurants. Schools. She took eight hundred and eighty measurements. She measured at adult height. Then she crouched to measure at child height. She tested distance. Position. Airflow. Again and again. What she found was impossible to ignore. Many high speed hand dryers exceeded one hundred decibels at a child’s ear level. Some reached levels comparable to emergency sirens. Levels that medical authorities already prohibit in children’s toys because of the risk of hearing damage. Children were not imagining the pain. They were standing closer to the source. Their ears were smaller. And the sound hitting them was stronger than what adults experienced. Manufacturers claimed their machines were safe. Nora’s data showed real world conditions told a different story. And she did not stop there. Still in middle school, she began designing a noise reduction filter. A simple modification that lowered sound output by more than ten decibels. Proof that the problem was not inevitable. Then she did something most adults never do. She wrote a scientific paper. Her first submission was rejected. So she revised. She corrected. She tried again. In June 2019, Paediatrics and Child Health published her study. Its title was direct and impossible to dismiss. Children who say hand dryers hurt my ears are correct. She was thirteen years old. Health professionals paid attention. Researchers cited her work. Parents shared it. Manufacturers requested meetings. All because a child trusted her own experience enough to test it. Nora did not raise her voice. She measured. She documented. She proved. And in doing so, she reminded the world of something simple and easily forgotten. Sometimes the smallest voices are describing the biggest problems. You just have to listen.

HAPPY BAD BUNNY DAY, AMERICA!

Georgia’s literacy laws are strong. The problem is implementation. Across the country, systems resist change quietly—by watering down guidance, inflating outcomes, and redefining “success.” No one says no. They just make “yes” meaningless. If this can happen in Georgia, it can happen anywhere. This is what quiet pushback looks like after reform. Read: open.substack.com/pub/misspu…

Tell school board members to make sure the materials they adopt have proof of working, before they adopt them. Normalize that.

Exactly how Trump is treating most Americans right now.

Fantastic article

When will we learn….. #stopthemadness seattletimes.com/opinion/wa-…

I’ve told the story of a colleague at a struggling school who said “reading and math are important, but I teach the whole child.” She was granting herself permission to fail at her primary responsibility and still see herself as a good teacher.

If I had to divide schools into 2 categories, it’d be those with mission-driven urgency and those that act like time is unlimited. Time sure feels endless until it’s your child who can’t read. At the end of the day, it’s strangers’ children who bear the consequences of inaction.