Category Archives: Schools and Assessment

Student Input on Teacher Effectiveness

By Steve Atwater | Published: January 8, 2012
One of the exercises that educators are periodically asked to perform is to look back at their schooling and identify their most effective teacher.  I inevitably land on my high school pre-calculus teacher.  She was a demure, petite woman who was, without question, my strictest and most effective teacher.  I know that later, when I […]
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Changing Purpose of School

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 27, 2011
I watched an interesting video last week (on YouTube of course) of a keynote presentation by Will Richardson.  Richardson, who writes and speaks about education, is adamant that the purpose of schools today is much different than it was in the past.  That is, he feels that a school’s primary function is no longer to […]
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Professional Development

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 18, 2011
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that my recent meetings with teachers consistently revealed a concern that the district administration added too much to the classroom plate this semester.  With this in mind, it is fair to assume that there was a collective exhale on Friday afternoon when the first semester came to a close.  […]
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School Choice

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 12, 2011
                For many parents the option of sending their child to a school of choice is one that they value dearly.  There are some in our district however, who are opposed to our schools of choice, claiming that these options distort the distribution of students by concentrating students with involved parents at a few schools.  […]
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Teacher Evaluation and Student Performance

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 5, 2011
For the past two months I have been traveling to schools to meet with teachers.  I am there to learn what is going well and what is challenging.  Predictably, and fairly, the focus of the discussion is on what is not going well.  It is clear that the district put a lot of on the […]
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Happy Thanksgiving

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 22, 2011
In my last post I wrote about the need for parents to help their young children acquire basic literacy skills before beginning school.  Yesterday, while meeting with a school staff, I learned that for more and more of our students this is not the case.  The teachers at this school told me that there is […]
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Early Literacy and Curriculum Rigor

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 20, 2011
Last week’s education summit in Anchorage explored how to make the Anchorage School District (ASD) a world class district.  Although I only watched about an hour of the second day and read the newspaper accounts of what took place, it is clear that there was a fair amount of attention given to the the need […]
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Digital learning and keeping it personal

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 14, 2011
When I speak to parent or community groups I usually mention that the district is working hard to incorporate the digital world into our students’ learning.  But twice last week I was told that we need to show more caution with using technology, that an overdependence on this medium will lead to an impersonal school […]
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Declining Enrollment

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 7, 2011
Each year during the first four weeks of October, the state counts the number of students enrolled in our schools.  This number is an important one because it determines our level of state funding.  Unfortunately, the just completed student count shows fewer enrolled students than what we projected. We are thus, in the somewhat awkward […]
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Teaching Life Skills at School

By Steve Atwater | Published: October 29, 2011
Last Thursday I was in Homer to lead a parent training.  Toward the middle of the presentation I asked the group to identify the skills that our students will need to be successful after they graduate from high school. A lot of good conversation ensued, but what was most interesting, was a sharp disagreement between two […]
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