Patty Carpenter

If you have served in public education for 20 years or more, this post is for you. You are part of the roughly 28% who entered public-school teaching and were still in the profession two decades later. So for the veteran teachers and staff who have served for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, and beyond, this is to celebrate you! You have endured some of the most difficult changes education has ever faced. You witnessed standardized testing grow into an overwhelming system of high-stakes pressure, excessive data collection, and constant documentation. You adapted to new standards, new technology, new programs, and an endless cycle of initiatives. You carried students and families through COVID, even while facing your own fears, losses, and uncertainty. You have watched respect for educators decline while expectations continued to rise. You have been asked to do more with less, solve problems you did not create, and meet needs that extend far beyond the classroom. And yet, you continued to show up. You taught the lesson again. You encouraged the struggling student. You supported the overwhelmed colleague. You welcomed the nervous parent. You kept schools functioning during some of the toughest years education has ever experienced. Most people will never fully understand what it takes to dedicate decades of your life to serving students, families, and communities. They will never know how many evenings, weekends, personal dollars, and pieces of your heart you have invested. There are adults walking through the world today who are stronger, wiser, and more confident because you once believed in them. To every teacher and staff member who has served for 20 years or more: Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for caring for our children. Thank you!

When a 2nd-grade math word problem is written at a 4th-grade reading level, it’s not really about the math anymore. It’s about reading above grade level. Reading belongs in math. Kids have to make sense of problems. But when the language is harder than the math, the outcome is predictable. Students can understand the math. They can know how to solve it. And still fail — because of how the question is written. This isn’t an accident. International comparisons (PISA and TIMSS) show that U.S. math assessments are often longer, wordier, and more linguistically complex than those used in many higher-performing countries — even when testing the same math concepts. In other words, testing companies design questions that make it easier to miss the math. If we want math scores to mean something, grade-level math needs grade-level language.