The process of moving an educational innovation from a good idea to widespread effective implementation is far from straightforward, and no one has a magic formula for doing it. The W. T. Grant and Spencer Foundations, with help from the...

Once upon a time, there was a football player named EDGAR. His team was in the state championship. It was the fourth quarter, and they were down by seven points. But just as time ran out, EDGAR ran around the opposing line and scored...

The process of moving an educational innovation from a good idea to widespread effective implementation is far from straightforward, and no one has a magic formula for doing it. The W. T. Grant and Spencer Foundations, with help from the...

Among many educators and policy makers, the idea of evidence-based reform is scary. They fear that rigorous evaluations will fail to support their favorite government programs. What if studies find few benefits of Title I or other longstanding government programs focused on disadvantaged children?

I just read a very interesting book called Improbable Scholars, by David Kirp of the University of California at Berkeley. In it, Kirp tells stories of his more than two years of observing schools in Union City, New Jersey, a...

With graduation season around the corner, I was recently thinking about a graduation speech I gave last year at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. During the speech, I briefly made the case for evidence-based reform. Everyone seemed happy about it, but shortly afterward I got...

Recently, Congressman George Miller (D-CA), ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee launched a bill to create an Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) for education. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Bennet (D-CO)....

The process of moving an educational innovation from a good idea to widespread effective implementation is far from straightforward, and no one has a magic formula for doing it. The W. T. Grant and Spencer Foundations, with help from the Forum for Youth Investment, have created a community composed of...

Courtesy of McDonald's

I was inspired to write this blog post while on a family vacation in northern Wisconsin, on Lake Superior. In this sparsely populated area, there is a Wal-mart, a Curves, at least two McDonald's and outlets of many other national...

Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

On Feb. 27, TED announced that it was awarding a $1 million prize for educational innovation to Sugata Mitra. Dr. Mitra is famous for his "hole...

In his recent State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed to "make high-quality preschool available to every child in America." He referred to research that has demonstrated long term positive effects of attending high-quality preschool programs. President Obama's support has excited the early childhood community. Who could...

The process of moving an educational innovation from a good idea to widespread effective implementation is far from straightforward, and no one has a magic formula for doing it. The W. T. Grant and Spencer Foundations, with help from the Forum for Youth...

There are few aspects of life more thoroughly dominated by government than education. This is particularly true of educational innovation. Innovative programs and materials do often come from the private sector, but they are adopted only if government supports them.

There are two theories of government as...

Everyone agrees that children who read well by third grade are far more likely than those who do not to succeed in later education and in life. For example, a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that poor readers in third grade were four times...

Amidst all the hue and cry about the fiscal cliff and the debt limit, a voice of reason made a plea so reasonable and nonpartisan that it was of course ignored.

Imagine that the U.S. Government issued a call to the most creative, innovative and productive parts of our society: Create an Algebra I curriculum so exciting, so well-designed, so engaging and so firmly based on well-established principles of learning that kids would be clamoring to get into the course, rushing...