Merry Sillitoe: Author, Education Reform

  • Do Our Kids Have Life Skills? 

    Most people do not know in which grade level our children are supposed to learn certain skills. See if you know or can guess: If you know anyone who did not learn these life skills in school, they probably were not given the time they needed to become competent when their class was being taught.  Read more

  • Motivate and Meet Student Needs With Competency -Based Learning and Promotion

    Motivation drives student behavior and performance. When students are motivated they will be more positive and energetic toward their learning. Motivated students are more likely to take initiative in their learning and persist through difficult material, mistakes, or tasks. William Glasser’s theory of five basic needs is relevant for motivating today’s children. School systems using Read more

  • Competency-Based Learning Would Benefit Special-Needs Students

    Competency-Based Learning and Promotion (CBLP) would benefit special-needs students due to the privacy it allows. When all students are progressing through learning standards at their own pace, students of the same age will not remain at the exact same level of learning in every subject. Special education students will move privately at their own pace Read more

  • School Security & Safety

    Parents: Check the Security at Your Child’s School Read more

  • Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)

    SEL Used to Happen In Teachable Moments One spring day, a 7th grade student, Ariana, was sitting on a bench in the school courtyard with her head down at the end of her lunch period as the other students returned to their classrooms. Her body language signaled that she was in distress. Instead of telling Read more

  • Let’s Fix Schools for Our Children

            The solution to our educational crisis is Competency-Based Learning and Promotion (CBLP), which is simply explained as students moving on to the next level of learning when they have mastered the current level in a particular subject. Tragic casualties of our current system are students who become bored and check out of school as well Read more