As a T-shirt I've seen often on the streets of Manhattan says: "Mean people suck." And yet they seem to pop up everywhere: in the airplane seat in front of you, in the line at the market, in the parking lot, in the workplace, on blogs, and certainly in the halls of Congress.

In fact, it may be that we're all more abrasive than we used to be. A 2014 poll by Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate in partnership with KRC Research found that most people think America has a raging civility problem. Blame for that differs across generations. Millennials and Gen-Xers say it's the Internet and social media. Boomers and older blame the tone set by politicians. Most think incivility will get worse. Millennials -- starry-eyed bunch that they are -- think it might get better. But only a little bit.

 Different Worlds of Policymakers and Teachers  by Larry Cuban on the Larry Cuban site

   U.S. school reforms, especially those directed toward improving how teachers teach and how students learn have been made historically by top policymakers and then delivered to principals and teachers to put into classroom practice. In many instances, this journey from policy to practice has disappointed policymakers. Often they complain about partial or distorted implementation of decisions. They see that their ideas of what a "good" school is, what effective teaching and learning are, and the importance of using new technologies for classroom lessons have been ignored by practitioners. These policymakers, however, wear blinders and fail to see that teachers are gatekeepers who decide what ideas and practices get past the classroom door.

5 Big Ways Education Will Change By 2020  by Samantha Cole  on the Fast Company site

In the next five years, we'll start to rethink a lot about education, from what's in school lunches to what a college degree really means.

How state budgets are breaking US schools

Our Schools Were Meant to Serve the Needs of Children, Not of the Nation by Joseph W. Gauld on the Huffington Post site

  Our educational system is centered on academic achievement. In spite of tremendous reform efforts over more than a half century, this focus has helped increasingly create one very rich America and one very poor one. It also fails to serve those of African, Hispanic and Native American heritages as well as it serves those of White or Asian heritages.

This is happening because the business-political-university leadership believes America needs an academically proficient work force in order to successfully compete internationally. So like ancient Sparta, American schools first and foremost educate its children to protect the state, and like Sparta, utilize the motivation of competition.

10 images to share at your next faculty meeting  by Justin Tarte on the Tarte site

For decades, Advanced Placement classes have been the gold standard in America's high schools, rigorous courses that give students a chance to earn college credit and lend prestige to the schools that offer them. Prodded by state financial incentives, high schools across Florida expanded AP classes dramatically over the past 15 years to more than 170,000 students a year.

But in Palm Beach County, the popularity of AP classes is declining after years of rapid growth, as the county's public high schools steer more students into a lesser known, less rigid series of college-level classes created by England's Cambridge University.

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