Lisa Starbuck's Page

I was at a client's site the other day and saw this wonderful poem by Ina Hughes that I had never seen before. I thought it was so moving and very appropriate for this site - I hope she doesn't mind me posting it here.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE
Ina Hughes

We are responsible
for children who put chocolate fingers everywhe…

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In a couple of weeks, the school board heads to Townsend for its annual retreat. One thorny topic of discussion is going to be rezoning Knox County middle and elementary schools. Nobody is happy about having to change schools because of rezoning, and it is one of the hardest issues the school board has to deal with.

Why is rezoning necessary? Historically, there have been a number of reasons: school overcrowding, economic disparities between school populations, attempt to achieve racial… Continue

Once again, I turn to one of my favorite weekly reading sources, Time Magazine, and find this story on education.

Not only are we failing the kids who are at the bottom of the education system, we may be also failing our brightest and best.

Here's a excerpt from the article:

"Our education system has little idea how to cultivate its most promising students. Since well before the Bush… Continue

From Time Magazine:

"For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap" between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to mak…

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The PBS is hosting a wonderful series on the impacts of the NCLB law.

Whether you believe the law is demoralizing teachers and causing schools to labeled as "failing" when they don't reach what some believe are unrealistic goals, or believe that NCLB is forcing school districts to shape up and pay attention to schools with poor performance, there's plenty of controversy to go around.

In San Diego, the NCLB law forced restructuring of schools that failed to make adequate yearly… Continue