NEA Member Benefits offers a wide range of deals and discounts for NEA members. Highlighted offers this month include $20 off tax preparation from H & R Block and 20% off floral arrangements from 1800Flowers.com. NEA Click & Save “Buy-lights” for February 2016 Remember your loved ones this Valentine’s Day! NEA Click & Save, the…
DetailsOn February 2, Punxsutawney Phil will see or not see his shadow. Explore light and shadow in math, science, and art lessons and have fun with the following collection of groundhog games and activities compiled by Phil Nast for NEA. Check out a variety of Lesson Plans Activities Online Activities Games Background Resources Printables Videos…
DetailsThe op-ed below by Betty J. Sternberg, former Connecticut commissioner of education, was published today in the Hartford Courant. CT’s Chance To Get Teacher Evaluations Right It’s time for evaluations of Connecticut’s teaching force to create an environment for teachers and students more like that of cutting-edge companies such as my son’s San Francisco-based startup,…
Details“The goal of teacher evaluation is to strengthen educator support and practice and to improve student learning,” CEA President Sheila Cohen told reporters at a news conference at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford today. “With 43,000 educator-members across the state, we’ve had enormous opportunity to assess the new evaluation system against that goal. After…
DetailsFor much too long, Congress engaged in an annual ritual of waiting until the last minute to extend some four dozen tax benefits that have to be renewed virtually every year, including many that NEA members have come to rely on. In the waning days of 2015, however, Congress surprisingly came together on a compromise…
Details“Connecticut is at a critical juncture when it comes to student data privacy,” Khaliah Barnes of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told legislators, parents, teachers, and concerned citizens gathered today at a CEA Forum on data privacy. “You have an important opportunity to come up with meaningful solutions to these issues.” The absence of strong…
DetailsCalling public education “the last frontier and bastion of the American dream,” CEA President Sheila Cohen last night spoke with members gathered together in Bolton at the first of a series of County Forums CEA is holding in January and February. The forums’ focus is the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association lawsuit that the Supreme…
DetailsWhile we would all love a silver bullet that could radically transform a city’s public schools for the better, gradual, systemic approaches that get widespread buy-in are what really positively transform schools. A recent New York Times op-ed by David Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, looks at how…
DetailsWhile ethnic studies courses have received negative attention in recent years in places such as Arizona, where a Mexican American studies course was banned in 2010, a new study on these classes has come out with a significant finding: they can help improve struggling students’ attendance rates and grades. Researchers looked at outcomes for students…
DetailsThe explosion in student data mining poses great risks to the safety, privacy, and civil liberties of children and families. Who is collecting student and teacher data? Who can get it? What are the risks? What has changed? What is FERPA? How have other states acted to increase data protections? What can parents, legislators, educators,…
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