This is a good article in the Washington Post

When you start telling me that you have to print books with 10 different colors on every page, with charts and stories about the rain forest and what you are going to do at Giant today because we have to make everything relevant 100 percent of the time . . . I say, no, no," he said. "I think we are doing our students a disservice."

It is startling to many educators to find that a teacher so critical of modern methods -- particularly the anti-drill doctrines of the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics -- has become such a success at preparing students for Jefferson, one of the most up-to-date, technologically oriented high schools in the world. Williams says he is not the least bit surprised.

I know there are a lot of variables involved so 7th graders can achieve in advanced math, but I think this says more about the expert, dedicated, teacher than the curriculum.

"Good teaching comes in many forms."

I'm sure there will be more of this

Reading School District's goal in suing the Pennsylvania Department of Education over the federal education law is to protect its schools from what the district believes are unfair sanctions.

Like many other school districts, Reading filed an appeal after the state singled out 13 of its 19 elementary, middle and high schools for not meeting standards the state set in the act.

Seven of Reading's schools were placed on a "warning" list, and six were placed on the more serious "school improvement" list, which requires the district to offer transfers to better-performing schools.

From little Sultan, WA:

Leadership:

Led by a dynamic principal, teachers at the 600-student Snohomish County school have spent the past few years mining and analyzing their school's WASL data, then building single-minded teams to ensure that proven methods of reading and math instruction infuse every classroom. So it's likely no accident that Sultan Middle School is emerging as one area school that has made the most improvement over five years on the WASL.

Synergy:

Sultan Middle School teachers took the lead to make sure reforms were carried out schoolwide: They became in-house experts on teaching strategies and formed study teams to tackle improvement in reading, writing and math.


Results:

This year, about 60 percent of Sultan seventh-graders met the WASL writing standard, a three-fold increase from five years ago. The school more than doubled its pass rate on the math section to 37 percent. Students' reading scores jumped to 44 percent this year after four consecutive years of being stuck in the low 30s.

I link, you think