I direct the Learning First Alliance, a permanent partnership of 17 major national education associations that collectively represent some 10 million parents, educators and policymakers. Alliance members share examples of success, encourage collaboration at every level, and work toward the continual and long-term improvement of public education
Blog Posts
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.
I'll spare you the suspense. The answer is an...
Read More.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...
Read More.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...
Read More.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...
Read More.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...
Read More.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-...
Read More.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
Read More.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...
Read More.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.
Read More.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.
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