Are classroom receipts something we can include with taxes? My wife is a private school teacher in Alabama. She spent money out of pocket last summer for things like classroom decor and classroom supplies. We saved the receipts, in case we can include them with our taxes. My question is, can we? This is her first year teaching, so our first year going through it. Appreciate any guidance. submitted b…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Rubik’s Cube and School Reform Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Rubik’s Cube and School Reform When the Rubik’s Cube appeared in the 1980s, I tried twisting and turning the colors to get them all aligned. I failed. Finding out that there are 3 billion possible ways to turn the Cube’s corners, edges, and center to get the solution comforted me…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Grading Students: A High School Teacher Challenges the System Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Grading Students: A High School Teacher Challenges the System When I served as a superintendent, I fired a teacher for giving an A to every student he taught. George D. was a high school social studies teacher in Arlington (VA) when I led the district (1974-1981). In the Fall of …

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: High Tech Devices: Addiction, Dependency, or Hype? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: High Tech Devices: Addiction, Dependency, or Hype? “We used to talk more before we had fire.” The New Yorker cartoon about the possible decrease in Neanderthal communication after the invention of fire pokes fun at the current hullabaloo over users’ addiction to smart phones, tab…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Questioning the Classroom Impact of Neuroscience and the Science of Reading Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Questioning the Classroom Impact of Neuroscience and the Science of Reading Suppose one tries to debate the Science of Reading (SoR) and what it is precisely. They will likely be met by cognitive psychologists, parents, and educators who are insistent about the importance of neuroscience. Trying to…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Fixing Public Schools Again and Again Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Fixing Public Schools Again and Again School reformers have a bad habit. Over the past century, they have skipped from one big policy fix to another without analyzing what happened the first time around. Or even whether the reforms succeeded or failed. Since World War II, U.S. pu…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Cash Incentives to Improve Schooling Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Cash Incentives to Improve Schooling In What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012), Michael Sandel says that today “almost everything is up for sale.” He gives some examples. #Rent out space on your body to display ads: Air New Zealand paid 30 people $777 to shave t…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* I wrote this post five years ago. With graduation ceremonies in K-12 and college occurring in the next few weeks, and so much written about teaching, I offer it again. A dear friend and I exchanged emails regularly. In one, she me…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Ignoring the Real World in the Classroom Teacher in a Strange Land: Ignoring the Real World in the Classroom Are you reading Jess Piper? If not—start now. Piper is a Missouri educator (among other things) whose commentary on teaching in a bright red state, and having been raised in a fundamentalist church, rings my chimes, again and again. She ran for a position in the MO…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can Historians Help School Reformers? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can Historians Help School Reformers? Historians are divided over what can be learned from history. Some find that knowing the past can inform the present. Others say that the past has no lessons to teach those living now but it is nonetheless worthwhile to recapture what occurre…

Thou Shalt Not Post the Ten Commandments in the Classroom Documents do not radiate powers of personal virtue.

Louisiana Requires Ten Commandments to Be Displayed in Every Public Classroom A law signed by Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday makes the state the only one with such a mandate. Critics have vowed to mount a constitutional challenge.

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Every Tech Tool in Classrooms Needs Ruthless Scrutiny (Jessica Grose) (Guest post by Jessica Grose) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Every Tech Tool in Classrooms Needs Ruthless Scrutiny (Jessica Grose) (Guest post by Jessica Grose) Just as school boards and administrators evaluate carefully every item placed in classrooms from the size of windows to furniture to whiteboards to textbooks, so too should the ub…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: There’s Too Much Stuff on Classroom Walls! Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: There’s Too Much Stuff on Classroom Walls! Classroom walls for young children learning to read are often covered with words, letters, word sounds, symbols, vocabulary, and even speech therapy pronunciation mouths, which are creepy. For years, Word Walls have ruled. Bare walls are also dull and unin…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms – Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms – Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose) Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The New York Times. She covers family, religion, education, and culture. Jaime Lewis noticed that her eighth-grade son’s grades were slipping several…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms – Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Get Tech Out of Classrooms – Some Parents Say (Jessica Grose) (Guest Post by Jessica Grose) Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The New York Times. She covers family, religion, education, and culture. Jaime Lewis noticed that her eighth-grade son’s grades were slipping several…

Meta is making it easier to bring Quest headsets into the classroom Photo by Becca Farsace / The VergeMeta is launching a new hub for Quest headsets later this year that should make it easier for educators to use them in schools. In a blog post on Monday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, writes that the hub will let teachers access “education-specific apps and features,” along with tools to manage…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Why Do School Reforms Occur Again and Again? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Why Do School Reforms Occur Again and Again? School reforms unfold less like an auto engine piston pumping up and down within a cylinder and more like a large weather front of uncertain origin moving across a region. Reforms, like weather fronts varying by seasons but similar acr…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Whatever Happened to Mayoral Control of Urban Public Schools? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Whatever Happened to Mayoral Control of Urban Public Schools? On the ever-changing agenda of reformers seeking to improve outcomes of U.S. schooling, how schools have been governed ranked in the middle and seldom rose to the top. Locally elected school boards, established in the …

A cozy area of my elementary school classroom submitted by /u/shainajoy