Stacey Yost

A 6th grade student misses over 30% of the school year and puts in almost no effort…and the school’s solution is to pass them along to the next grade. Hmmm, I wonder how they will do next year. 😐

Yes. This is what the majority of parents don’t truly grasp. If your child is actually on grade level or above, they get less attention than the other students in the class. It’s ridiculous. Every email, meeting, discussion at school is about the bottom quartile and those misbehaving.

When you don’t brush, floss, or go to the dentist, you don’t get to blame the dentist for bad teeth. When a student is consistently absent and barely does any of the work, don’t blame the school or teacher(s) when that student fails.

Schools should more consistently expel students who continually disrupt learning. States should require those students to transition to structured online programs instead of returning to school.

How did we get to a point where students can miss 50+ days, struggle with basic reading and math, and still get promoted? Then we act surprised when they’re years behind. This didn’t happen overnight…it’s been building for decades.

Students who took notes by hand scored ~28% higher on conceptual questions than laptop note-takers. Writing forces your brain to process and compress ideas instead of copying them.

The school I work for right now is damn good when it comes to discipline and accountability. Want to know what our policies look like? Pretty much identical to everyone else’s. The difference is simple: when a student breaks a rule, an administrator actually follows through. The policies are pointless when adults are unwilling, or unable, to use their authority to enforce them.

Chronic absenteeism is a major challenge in schools and often leads to academic struggles for students. Yet teachers are frequently held responsible for the outcomes. It’s time to recognize that schools and educators alone cannot solve all the challenges students face.

Schools spend hours trying to “reach” the kid who openly doesn’t care, while the kid who tries every day quietly gets ignored. We’re exhausting ourselves chasing resistance instead of investing in effort.

The highest draft pick and the second Osprey to be drafted to the @MLS in program history. You've got a great one, @OrlandoCitySC 👏

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.

Does it really make a difference if students read whole books rather than only brief texts & excerpts? Evidence indicates the answer is "yes." Plus it's a lot more engaging. @DougLemov @karenvaites @HKorbey See my new piece in American Educator: aft.org/ae/winter2025-…

We have created a system where covering content matters more than understanding it. And the cost is enormous. Teachers are not rushing because they want to. They rush because the curriculum is packed so tightly that every minute is spoken for. There is barely time to finish the lesson, much less pause for questions. The irony is that questions are where real learning happens. A question is the mind trying to make meaning. It is the moment a student reaches beyond memorizing and starts thinking. But when the day is so full that students cannot even ask questions, they never learn how to question. And if they never learn how to question, they never learn how to think. Yet people still say things like, “If the standards are the same, classrooms should look the same.” That idea sounds organized on paper, but it reveals a misunderstanding of learning. Two classes can have the same standards and be in completely different places. Because no two groups of students are the same. No two teachers are the same. No two paths to understanding are the same. Standards describe the goals. They do not dictate the route. They do not require identical classrooms moving at identical speeds. Learning is not a race to stay on pace. Learning is the space to wonder, question, explore, and connect ideas. When we remove that space, we are not raising rigor. We are removing thinking. If we truly want deeper learning, we need less racing and more room. Less pressure to cover content and more permission to understand it. Less focus on identical pacing and more focus on actual growth. Because students do not grow from being pushed through material. They grow from being allowed to think.

Which district is going to be brave enough to do this first?

Things parents need to hear without sugarcoating it: Your child’s behavior is interfering with their own academic progress, the academic progress of other students, and the teacher’s ability to do their actual job.

Student handbooks and policies often champion a student's "right to learn" But that "right" only ever applies to misbehaving kids What about the 29 other students in a classroom who can't focus because their peers are acting out, picking fights, disrespecting their teacher?

If a school rule isn’t enforced with a consequence, then there’s not actually a rule

Ospreys head to Chapel Hill, NC to battle North Carolina at Dorrance Field in the NCAA Championship First Round on Thursday! #SWOOP | @NCAASoccer

We don’t blame doctors when some patients won’t do what it takes to improve their health. So why do we blame teachers when some students won’t do what it takes to learn?

Class size does matter. Behavior matters even more. It’s not just that it’s impossible to meet the needs of 30 engaged students in one room. The real issue is that almost every class has one or two students who don’t want to be there and can derail learning for everyone else. Teachers can manage big classes. What they can’t do is teach, redirect, protect, and de-escalate all at once when one or two students are constantly disrupting… or worse. We’ve reached a point where a teacher was shot by a 6-year-old, and she had to sue her district just to get paid for the trauma she endured. If that doesn’t show how far this has gone, nothing will. Most students want to learn. Most teachers want to teach. But it only takes one or two to shut a class down or put a teacher in danger. If we want better learning, we can’t ignore this reality. Class size matters and so do the supports, boundaries, and alternatives for students who cannot function safely in a traditional classroom.