Here are four blogs - 3 of them are relatively new - that you should definitely check out:
* The Lights of El Milagro: Stories from One of America’s Most Innovative Charter Schools: This is the first blog written by a charter school founder and current principal that’s come across my screen. Kevin Riley, who chronicles the ins and outs of Mueller Charter School in California, brings a unique set of experiences to the blogosphere, and has a great post up about AYP and baseball box scores. Of the wait to find out if his school cleared AYP, he writes, “we know for certain that a single box score out of context cannot predict whether the Yankees or the Red Sox will win the American League East. Just as we know that the complex drama of teaching and learning and human relationships and keeping children whole will not show up in the box score.”
* It’s Not All Flowers and Sausages: Written by Mimi, a pseudonymous teacher (and new commenter at this site!), this is a hilarious blog about day-to-day life in schools. I especially like this post, Sippin’ on Gin and Juice, about a parent who gave her a bottle of rum as a thank you gift. I won’t spoil the ending.
* The London Times School Gate: If you don’t pay attention to education policy in England, you’re missing out. Since the 1990s, American education policy has borrowed many lessons from UK education policy, just as John Chubb and Terry Moe suggested we should in their 1992 book, A Lesson in School Reform from Great Britain. The New York City Quality Reviews mirror that of the English school inspection system in many ways. (See skoolboy on Ofsted here.) This blog should help us all stay on top of developments across the pond.
* Schoolracetalk.org: In case you missed the announcement embedded in Mica Pollock’s guest post, she has just kicked off a new blog. As I have written before, Pollock is one of the most exciting and thoughtful scholarly voices on how educators handle day-to-day issues of race in schools and classrooms.