Parent-led advocacy for quality schooling for all US children.
Joined December 2020
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Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
I taught in District 7 a quarter century ago. It was NYC’s lowest performing district then and still is now. We should be ashamed of ourselves allowing generation after generation to be so poorly served and educated.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Truly a mind-blowing segment.
Especially if you have listened to Sold a Story Episode 4 (the best yet in Season 2).
30 years ago, John Stossel asked why San Diego schools weren’t using Direct Instruction to address students’ struggles in reading and math.
The superintendent’s response? Classrooms should be “more than just worksheets and multiplication facts.”
When Stossel pointed out that kids weren’t mastering basic skills, she cited rising graduation rates.
His retort: “You’re graduating them, but they can’t read.”
Fast forward to today, the reflex remains the same: When students aren't academically proficient, deflect to gameable metrics.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
The uncomfortable question is why a basic, bedrock government funded and run service, public education, is not required or expected to follow evidence where it leads, without a hint controversy.
What if one of Americas largest education experiments revealed something we still don’t want to talk about?
In the 1970s, Project Follow Through put nearly 20 teaching models to the test in classrooms serving children from low income families.
There was one approach that stood out - Direct Instruction.
It didn’t just produce stronger academic results in reading and mathematics, but it also performed incredibly well in problem solving and student self esteem.
Yet decades later, we’re still debating whether this approach belongs in our classrooms…Why?
The latest season of Sold a Story brings this debate back into focus. But the history goes much deeper than one podcast or one teaching method.
Perhaps it’s time to ask a bigger question: Are we choosing teaching methods based on what looks good in a classroom, or what actually helps children learn?
🎥 Watch the video and join the conversation.
@ehanford #Soldastory
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Daniel OK-Carr has some powerful points about Savaas MyView, one of the popular basal curricula.
On its Science of Reading-era revamp:
"I bought the 2020 student textbook for my grade level to see the differences myself. What changed?
I kid you not, the order of the worksheets. The stories, the questions, the formulaic close read prompts, and the worksheets themselves — they all are exactly the same.
Either Savvas is supremely confident that their product has achieved the pinnacle of textbook glory, or they are simply supremely lazy."
I wish these stories weren't so common.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
I’ve spent 20 years convinced that the way we train teachers to teach reading and writing is broken, counter-productive, and harmful.
There is a non-trivial chance math is worse.
This 2nd grade teacher is being propped up as an example to people across Utah as to how math should be taught in elementary school. He “trains” hundreds of new and current teachers. What say ye @rastokke @MrZachG @sarahpowellphd
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Infuriating. Literally choosing failure and to shortchange vulnerable children.
30 years ago, John Stossel asked why San Diego schools weren’t using Direct Instruction to address students’ struggles in reading and math.
The superintendent’s response? Classrooms should be “more than just worksheets and multiplication facts.”
When Stossel pointed out that kids weren’t mastering basic skills, she cited rising graduation rates.
His retort: “You’re graduating them, but they can’t read.”
Fast forward to today, the reflex remains the same: When students aren't academically proficient, deflect to gameable metrics.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Bill Maher has been so consistently great on defending free-range childhood and scorning safetyism.
Here, in 8 minutes, he basically summarizes The Anxious Generation, The TAG Movement, and Let Grow.
Thanks @billmaher!
youtube.com/watch?v=OjQZ6obD…
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Are there sensitive periods during which adverse experiences have especially profound effects on brain development? This review concludes evidence is mixed, but research is dogged by conceptual, theoretical, and methodological heterogeneity.
acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.co…
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
In a devastating 1rst-person piece, NYC education advocate and mom Adriana Aviles tells how her son received the highest grades in math throughout elementary and middle school in Queens’ District 26, the best in the city.
Yet now in high school, she soon discovered, “He couldn’t solve basic algebra. He couldn’t do geometry. He couldn’t compute elementary-school fractions."
“My shock soon gave way to heartbreak, then anger. The NYC education system had betrayed my son to make itself look better."
“I failed too. I didn’t scrutinize his work closely or check his performance on state test scores because I figured if his report cards were good then everything was fine.”
“I looked back and discovered he was deemed ‘not proficient’ in math on a 7th-grade state exam.”
nypost.com/2026/10/31/us-new…
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Important and devastating report on the SAT from Johns Hopkins and @TACollege.
Among the findings: The average length of a reading passage on the SAT has decreased from 340 to 97 words since the 1980s.
Step number one for restoring meritocracy & rigor to the college admissions process is a national board to determine content and standards for the primary test of admissions.
This is how England does it.
thomasaquinas.edu/news/tac-s…
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
My Catholic classical school advances kids as fast as they are capable. My 5th grader is in pre algebra, his friend is in algebra I at the age of 10. I don’t think alpha is the *only* place that does this, just one of the few.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
I think TBH most parents naively think 40-60k (in SF) of private school gets “40-60k of whatever my kid needs” when in fact it gets you a peer group whose parents can pay 40-60k and other things are as variable as public.
Btw trying to GT school pill my oldest we’ll see 🤣
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Let me scandalize you with how much I spent on private school in SF that a) didn’t teach one kid to read or write and b) didn’t do anything to accelerate my child who is testing 3 to 8 grade levels above his current level
Tuition costs at private schools in San Francisco according to the SF Chronicle
Average private high school in the city is $56k per year. Middle school $30k and elementary $28k
The Catholic schools on this list stand out as having substantially lower tuition and many are regarded as being some of the top schools in the city
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Here in Austin, I don’t know of any school (public or private) that routinely accelerates elementary school students, no matter how clearly qualified (except the Alpha schools).
My friends with mathy kids in a Catholic school and a “classical” charter … nothin. Latter just got chided “we’re educating the *whole child* here” (ie slow your roll)
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Councilmember Rita Joseph, a former teacher and former Chair of the City Council’s Education Committee, kept it real.
#SHSAT prep is FREE through the DOE’s DREAM program. Joseph urged families in her community to “commit” if attending a Specialized High School is their goal. They had to close a program because kids weren’t showing up.
Credit to The Beacon and Blueprint podcast 10/27/2026
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
I keep having conversations with friends about "underfunded" education systems.
Then I tell them how much we're spending per pupil in NYC and Westchester, NY. It's private school education levels (and beyond).
You can watch them trying to figure out where the money is going.
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
Hard to imagine a better podcast than Anna Stokke interviewing Hector Ruiz Martin. Super Bowl good! They ought to book Taylor Swift to do a halftime show!
❓ Why do students forget what they learn, and struggle to apply it in new situations?
On October 30, I am joined by researcher and author Héctor Ruiz Martín to talk about his book How We Learn. We discuss what cognitive science tells us about memory, learning, effective teaching.
🎙️Don't miss the next episode of Chalk & Talk!
@hruizmartin
#ChalkandTalk #ScienceOfLearning #EducationResearch #Teaching
Quality Schools for Every Child retweeted
It’s an open secret that the No. 1 reason parents choose effective charter schools in NYC is “safety.” They’re not wrong. Count your good fortune if you’ve never had to worry about your kid’s physical safety in school.
