Groups such as The New Teacher Project and the National Council on Teacher Quality have both pointed to the need to redo teacher personnel policies, to reward teachers who work in more challenging classrooms and weed out the few bad apples.

According to Education Week (sub. required), states are now following through on those suggestions, with revisions to laws  "being coupled with movements to tie tenure to student academic achievement, reflecting an increased emphasis in national policy circles on the importance of gauging teachers' impact on student learning."

It's a story many of you already know. But perhaps on a Monday late in the school year with state assessments all around us, it bears repeating. I was reminded of the story while browsing through an old teaching strategy article from the Organization of American Historians.

Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Adams and son of John Quincy Adams, served as a Massachusetts state senator, a US Congressman and ambassador to Great Britain under Abraham Lincoln. He was also very conscientious about keeping a daily journal and encouraged his children to do the same.

Are you looking for a fun way to review vocabulary, practice basic facts, work on place value?  The interactive random name picker is a fun "free" internet tool.  I have used this with students and played "password".  I type in vocabulary words and one person is the caller and the other person needs to name what the person is describing.  Examples: polygons, triangle, quadrilateral, ray, segment, etc...

Have you ever thought of yourself as being a spokesperson for something you really believed in or felt passionate about? Something you knew from past history you could relay the message of the person or business and know you could depend on the credibility to always be there? Those are traits of a true Ambassador!

Find out more!