Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: High Schoolers Need to Do Less So That They Can Do Better (Tim Donahue) (Guest Post by Tim Donahue) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: High Schoolers Need to Do Less So That They Can Do Better (Tim Donahue) (Guest Post by Tim Donahue) “Mr. Donahue teaches high school English at Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut.” This article appeared in The New York Times, September 7, 2024. To earn the distinction of…

Janresseger: Voucher Programs Prove Again and Again What We Already Know Janresseger: Voucher Programs Prove Again and Again What We Already Know As we all know,  state legislators across the country originally justified passing small, experimental voucher programs as a way to help poor kids escape from their so-called “failing” public schools. A year ago, at the end of The School Voucher Illusion: Expo…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Are You an Instruction Geek? Teacher in a Strange Land: Are You an Instruction Geek? I generally don’t pay much attention, anymore, to the rightwing young guns who dominate edu-social media. Mostly this is because they’re not providing any new content about what you might call school improvement—genuinely interesting or useful ideas for making lessons interest…

Curmudgucation: Why Do State Report Cards Stink Curmudgucation: Why Do State Report Cards Stink Morgan Polikoff (USC Rosier School of Education, FutureEd) and some folks at the reformy Center for Reinventing Public Education along with the Data Quality Campaign wanted to put together a report on what state report card sites had to say about pandemic learning loss trajectories.  …

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Cash Incentives to Improve Schooling Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Cash Incentives to Improve Schooling In What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012), Michael Sandel says that today “almost everything is up for sale.” He gives some examples. #Rent out space on your body to display ads: Air New Zealand paid 30 people $777 to shave t…

Shanker Blog: A Legislator’s Lessons From Fifth Graders Shanker Blog: A Legislator’s Lessons From Fifth Graders Our guest author is Massachusetts State Senator Becca Rausch. Earlier this year, I walked into one of the elementary schools in my district to visit with the fifth grade –- all 300 of them. (For those who might not work with young people routinely, that is a lot of fifth grade…

Janresseger: How Billionaires Bought College Departments, Set Up Think Tanks, Fostered White Nationalism, and Ignored the Evidence to Promote School Vouchers Janresseger: How Billionaires Bought College Departments, Set Up Think Tanks, Fostered White Nationalism, and Ignored the Evidence to Promote School Vouchers A new book by Michigan State University professor of education, Josh Cowen, The Privateers: How Billionaires Created A Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, combines academic …

Teacher in a Strange Land: What Do Parents Know About Public Education? Teacher in a Strange Land: What Do Parents Know About Public Education? Not much. But don’t take my word for it. Kappan recently took a look at American adults’ knowledge of public schools: Our findings shed light on a key question: What do adults know about U.S. education? Specifically, what do they know about what is taught, who …

Curmudgucation: Are Grade Level Texts the Magical Cure? (The Ghost of Common Core) Curmudgucation: Are Grade Level Texts the Magical Cure? (The Ghost of Common Core) At The Hechinger Report, Suzanne Simons wants to complain about English Language Arts instruction in middle and high schools. It’s a familiar kind of mess, but I promise a tiny twist at the end, which might almost make up for the length. Simons is th…

10th Period: Chickens Coming Home to Roost 10th Period: Chickens Coming Home to Roost I don’t usually like to say, “I told you so,” but when the shoe fits… In 2013, Kasich and his legislative allies eliminated the so-called “property tax rollback” in order to pay for his continued tax cuts benefitting the wealthy. When I was at Innovation Ohio, we pointed out how disastrous…

10th Period: Vouchers, Like Their Advocates, Move to the ‘Burbs 10th Period: Vouchers, Like Their Advocates, Move to the ‘Burbs Whenever I think about Ohio’s EdChoice Voucher Program, I keep coming back to Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s majority opinion in 2002 that found Cleveland’s voucher program — EdChoice’s predecessor — constitutional: “Any objective observer familiar with the full hi…

Curmudgucation: Cato’s Failed Argument Against Public School Curmudgucation: Cato’s Failed Argument Against Public School Colleen Hroncinch of Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom tried this week to plug one of the pro-public education arguments that the Libertarian think tank runs up against when pushing choice.  Do public schools serve everyone, she asks. She does not make a convi…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education Teacher in a Strange Land: Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education I have been fascinated, in the past 48 hours, by online conversations about the tumultuous political week we have just lived through—especially the comments and questions generated by teachers. Non-teachers are heartbroken or thrilled or both, by the Biden …

Janresseger: Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education Janresseger: Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education In last week’s Washington Post, Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein explore what they call “a fading church-state line” in education: “The expansion in voucher programs is part of a broader move in some states toward more government-sponsored religion insid…

Shanker Blog: New Hampshire’s Divisive Concepts Law Was Ruled Unconstitutional, Sending a Message to the Nation Shanker Blog: New Hampshire’s Divisive Concepts Law Was Ruled Unconstitutional, Sending a Message to the Nation Our guest author is Deb Howes, President of AFT-NH. A version of the article originally appeared in the Concord Monitor on June 14, 2024. A funny thing happened on New Hampshire’s way to threatening to fire teachers for t…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Why Has Education Reform Always Failed?: “Straightforward Solutions to Complicated Questions” Radical Eyes for Equity: Why Has Education Reform Always Failed?: “Straightforward Solutions to Complicated Questions” Writing about the fundamental flaw in Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, Andrew Solomon opens with a claim that helps explain why five-decades of intensive education reform has always failed: “There is nothin…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers? (Kwame Anthony Appiah) (Guest Post by Kwame Anthony Appiah) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers? (Kwame Anthony Appiah) (Guest Post by Kwame Anthony Appiah) Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-born philosopher, novelist, and scholar of African and African American studies. He writes a column called “The Ethicist” for The New York Ti…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Need Help! Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Need Help! Public schools stand out for their inclusive approach toward students with disabilities, in stark contrast to many charter, private, and parochial schools. This unwavering commitment ensures that every student, including those with emotion…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* I wrote this post five years ago. With graduation ceremonies in K-12 and college occurring in the next few weeks, and so much written about teaching, I offer it again. A dear friend and I exchanged emails regularly. In one, she me…

David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Peter Gray: The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Peter Gray: The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School This post is a recent essay by Peter Gray published on his Substack, Play Makes Us Human.  Here’s a link to the original.  He is a research professor of psychology at Boston College, who has written a number of …