I'll spare you the suspense. The answer is an emphatic no. In fact, strong content standards can support creativity in our schools. Standards can get a bad rap because they conjure specters of standardization, uniformity and dogma.

Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.

Many times education reform debates are framed with an us versus them mentality. It doesn't matter what you are arguing for, there is always a clearly defined group working against you. The media also provides the reformers versus the establishment (never mind those members of the establishment who are doing innovative reform work all over the country).

Foreign language is on the chopping block in school districts around the country. So when Jay Mathews wrote a piece a few weeks ago about the foreign language study basically being a waste of time I was floored. Now is not the time to grease the rails for further cuts to language programs.

Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.

Several weeks ago, I called Mike Town to talk about environmental education. I ended up wrestling, once again, with issues of high school tracking.

Here's how John Cooper of the Sundance Film Festival described a new documentary on public schools: "It's an analysis of how bad neighborhoods don't necessarily create bad schools, but bad schools create bad neighborhoods... ."

This strikes me as an oversimplification -- and possibly a harmful one at that.

Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.

Let's say a district mandates that all students take a college-preparatory curriculum in hopes of improving academic achievement and increasing college going and retention rates. The result? Not great. Why not?

A high school principal recently caught me off guard. When I asked him how he deals with the challenges of educating students who are still learning English, he had this to say

Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.

The Obama administration has made turning around America's lowest performing schools a cornerstone of its education agenda. And with good reason -- all children should have access to an excellent education.

As a nation, we're very keen to stem the tide of dropouts from our schools, but we seem oddly cold to the fates of those who have already dropped out.

Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.