It's suddenly in vogue to gather and tell stories as part of an organization's larger strategy to build an audience and effect change. On one level, I...
This is not the first time the Times has uncritically conflated something as comprehensive as "a better education" with something as singular as student reading and math scores. I imagine it won't be the last.
It's that time of year again, when parents across the country -- but particularly parents in major American cities -- prepare to schedule a flurry of open houses in a frantic search for the best school for their child.
Instead of offering disconnected but well-intentioned efforts to help children think, feel or act, would adults start to help children think, feel and act? Would communities be increasingly populated with people who were neither narcissistic nor emotionally empty?
What would a healthy tension between vision and mission look like in an ideal second term when it comes to public education? I'd suggest three things.
Local educators could do a lot to sidestep national policymakers by committing to do just three things this coming school year:
Tom Friedman has a new column about education in which he almost makes an important point about the state of K-12 schooling in America, and what we can do to improve it.
How's this for a summer blockbuster -- the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Michigan for violating the "right to learn" of its children, a right guaranteed under an obscure state law.
Brain-based research is starting to demonstrate that the benefits of being bilingual go a lot deeper than knowing another language. And the schools -- and states -- that are ahead of the curve are acting accordingly.
What is the statistical equivalent of a "save" in teaching -- and if we measured it, would it help us better assess a teacher's ability to support the learning and growth of children?
Buck reminds us that when learning is understood as the effort to empathize with another, it transforms both teacher and student.
What makes the Blue School's framework exciting is its commitment to explicitly link everything it does to the latest research about how the brain works, and about how people learn.
Once again, David Brooks has written an important column about education. And once again, he offers a vision of modern schooling that is almost perfect -- but not quite.
Our well-intended quest for ever-higher achievement has bred a nation of helicopter parents and a generation of children with plenty of love and precious few limits.
When one looks back at the last 15 months -- a period in which school reform has been at the forefront of American life -- what becomes clear is that we haven't been having a national debate about learning.
We need to have a deeper reflective conversation about what powerful learning and teaching actually look like so that we can start to realign our system
Support for the privatization of America's public school system is growing. How can we reclaim the purpose of public education and create space for innovation?
Learning involves more than basic skills and regurgitating information. It requires higher-order skills and the capacity to digest, make sense of, and apply what we've been taught.
