Category: Education Policy and Opinion

Getting and retaining a lawyer doesn’t mean you are guilty of a crime. It means you are wise. We often equate legal counsel with wrong doing. There are many times that educational professionals need legal counsel which have nothing to do with criminal activity nor wrong doing. In the Boy […]

In regards to Race to the Top, I remember writing to the Republican Lieutenant Governor at the time. I warned him that performance based salaries(for teachers) which were connected to student TCAP scores were a fool’s errand, or something to that effect. He responded which I appreciated. However, he never […]

This is a needed topic of conversation In Kingsport. Bristol and Johnson City are running circles around us right now when it comes to city growth and development. Bristol has the Hard Rock nearing completion. Johnson City’s I-26 and 11-E corridors are growing rapidly. In Kingsport, our two newest elementary […]

Here is an issue that I have changed my mind about as the years have passed. I used to be a strong supporter of public education. In many ways I still am, but that is tempered now. If this past week in Kingsport has driven anything home it is this….woke […]

If we want to know the priorities of a school system, then follow the money. Sometimes that trail of dollars leads down rabbit holes which are sketchy. No public school employee should be working as a consultant for a company which is doing business in their local school system. No […]

We almost moved to Wyoming once. I wish we had, but that is another story for another day. While researching several school districts in that region, we began to notice that at least a few districts in the Mountain West had adopted four day school weeks during the worst of […]

Herb Brooks was an innovator. He was a someone with that rare gift of being able to see a nearly impossible dream in the distance, and build a bridge to it. With the approach of the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, Herb knew that defeating the […]

Whew! In my community, our school logo(an Indian) was painted over after the first home game of the season. The logo was a massive and courageous face painted on the pavement between the stadium and field. It had been there for as long as I can remember. The logos on […]

These cell phone bans by school systems are going to work about as well as prohibition did during the 1920s. We are trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. That technology is here to stay whether we ban it or not. Let me say that I understand the […]