In Trying to Reduce Class Sizes, Are We Trying to Solve the Wrong Problem?
Are smaller class sizes the key to breathing new life into today’s public schools, or a misguided effort to solve the problems of a dying era? I am surprised to say I have come to believe it’s the...
View ArticleHow can we ensure better teacher quality?
I’m a big fan of the New York Times’ Room for Debate series, in which a central question is asked of five different folks. Today, the question was about how to ensure and improve teacher quality. And...
View ArticleThis is why we need to take teacher salaries seriously
It comes courtesy of my friends at the Teacher Salary Project (on whose advisory board I sit). And it should make all of us embarrassed and unsatisfied. Kory is a full-time public school teacher in San...
View ArticleAs Fifty States Reimagine Education Policy, Four Are Ready to Offer Guidance
What makes a mind come alive? How can one community impact every child? What do schools need to be changing from, and to? And how can states set the conditions for lasting change? In theory, these...
View ArticleThe Beautiful Struggle
I’ve yet to meet a grown-up who, at some point, hasn’t felt a bit like a hamster in the wheel – spinning mindlessly towards some opaque goal, and for some abstract, poorly understood reason. Life can...
View ArticleThe Age of the Individual is Upon Us
One year, early in my teaching career, I got reprimanded for giving too many “A’s.” “You can’t give everyone the same grade,” I was instructed. “Give a few A’s and F’s, and a lot of B’s and C’s....
View ArticleThe Most Famous Nursery Schools in the World — And What They Can Teach Us
Reggio Emilia, a mid-sized city that sits roughly halfway between Milan and Bologna, is not your grandmother’s Italy. For starters, it’s more hardscrabble than picturesque -- heavily graffitied, with...
View ArticleDiverse by Design: Episode 3 (Never Teach Alone)
Powerful learning is a relational act; it never occurs alone. Why, then, do we expect our teacher to hone their craft in isolation? In episode 3 of the six-part series, Diverse by Design, we meet two...
View ArticleNew Rules for New Schools
As more and more adults get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus -- and more and more students cautiously return to some form of in-person schooling -- the desire to “get back to normal” feels like...
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