The following essay was written by Tina Beveridge. Tina is a veteran music educator of 17 years and is currently a 2nd year PhD student in music education at the University of Miami. It was first posted on her own blog Insert brilliant title here… Reader, I’m not going to lie. I felt an enormous weight lift when President Biden […]

The inestimable Ron French is out this week with a terrific article in Bridge on the exploding Covid crisis in Michigan’s schools, and the situation is indeed dire. Readers across the state must be wondering how we got here. “Kids don’t catch the virus!”, they said. “And if they do catch it, they don’t get sick!”, they said. Even if […]

It’s been 8 months now that many of us have been teaching and learning virtually, and I thought it might be time for a little reflection on what has worked out better than we may have expected, what is still a disaster, and everything in between. So, without further ado, I present The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of […]

Dear Ms. McConnell, Since you took the time to offer your advice, as a nurse, on how teachers should do their jobs, I thought I’d return the favor and share my thoughts on how nurses should do their jobs. Except the truth is that I don’t have the faintest idea how to advise you how to be a nurse. Because […]

A friend asked me how I was doing during this pandemic, and I thought I’d share my perspective as a teacher who has struggled to find my footing in our new reality… How am I doing, you ask? To be honest, not well. I’ve been a teacher for 40 years now, and I really love teaching. I love the interactions […]

I received a phone call from a music teacher last night whose principal had recently marked her down on an unannounced, “drive-by” observation…because the students “weren’t engaged.” When she asked how the principal had come up with that rating, she was told the “evidence” upon which the comment was made was based on the principal’s observation that “only 10% of […]

It’s become clear that public opinion has finally shifted against charter schools, vouchers, and the privatization of public education by corporate education reformers. This shift is now creating a great deal of frustration and uneasiness within the corporate ed reform community, who are sensing that their efforts over the past couple of decades may not be successful after all–and that […]

Aaaaand, the gaslighting around the Covington Catholic High School controversy has begun. “He wasn’t smirking…he was nervous.” “He was frightened…that man was right in his face!” “There were black Muslims saying awful things to those boys!” “The press is distorting the narrative because of their hatred for Trump!” “Just because those boys were wearing MAGA hats doesn’t mean they were […]

Every time I go out to observe one of our music student teachers, I come away thinking three things… 1. These new music teachers are really, really good. Much better than I was just coming out of school. More musically versatile, more aware of the profession, so passionate about teaching kids about music. In spite of the doom & gloom […]

Attorney General Bill Schuette has been part of the team running the state of Michigan for the past 8 years. Why anyone would think he has suddenly come up with some new, out-of-the-box ideas on how to improve the state’s schools, just because he’s now running for governor, is simply beyond me. But the good folks over at Bridge took […]

Secretary of Education and Saturday Night Live fixture Betsy DeVos is fond of saying that picking a school should be as easy as choosing an Uber or a Lyft. She bases this belief on the economic theories that buttress much of the neo-liberal and conservative approach to education reform: As economist Milton Friedman had theorized decades earlier, Ohio legislators believed […]