Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Technology Might Be Making Schooling Worse (Antero Garcia) (Guest Post by Antero Garcia) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Technology Might Be Making Schooling Worse (Antero Garcia) (Guest Post by Antero Garcia) Antero Garcia is associate professor of education in Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. This article appeared in Stanford Report, June 26, 2023 As a professor of education an…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Moving Beyond the Cult of Pedagogy in Education Reform Radical Eyes for Equity: Moving Beyond the Cult of Pedagogy in Education Reform As a teacher for forty years and a teacher educator for more than half of that career, I have always struggled with the tendency to oversell teacher quality and instructional practice. Does teacher quality matter? Of course. Does instructional practice …

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Little-Discussed Reasons Why Students Might Not Like to Read Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Little-Discussed Reasons Why Students Might Not Like to Read Students don’t like to read. These rarely discussed reasons may explain why. Kindergarten is no longer a garden.    Kindergartners are pressured to read. Before NCLB, over twenty years ago, this was unheard of and still makes no sense. Fo…

Curmudgucation: Questions for Voucher Supporters Curmudgucation: Questions for Voucher Supporters In Pennsylvania, the GOP is still pursuing the voucher program that Governor Shapiro just vetoed. Their dismay over his veto is understandable– it’s a version of the long-pitched voucher program that was tooled to meet his requirements. So the GOP can be forgiven for feeling as if t…

Janresseger: As School Reform Devolves to the States, Public Schools Face Unrelenting, Far Right Opposition Janresseger: As School Reform Devolves to the States, Public Schools Face Unrelenting, Far Right Opposition The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), passed in 2002, embodied school reform premised on the theory of test-based accountability—the requirement of high-stakes standardized tests for all students and the application of…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: How Teachers and Students Think about and Use A.I. (Natasha Singer) (Guest post by Natasha Singer) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: How Teachers and Students Think about and Use A.I. (Natasha Singer) (Guest post by Natasha Singer) Natasha Singer writes about technology, business and society for the New York Times. She reports on tech companies and their influence on public schools, higher education and job op…

Answer Sheet: How to Fix the Damage Done to Schools by Federal School Reform Laws Answer Sheet: How to Fix the Damage Done to Schools by Federal School Reform Laws More than 20 years ago, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into federal law, ushering in a new period of school reform that was centered on accountability based on high-stakes testing. It failed to produce the improvements pr…

Teacher in a Strange Land: The War Against Icebreakers Teacher in a Strange Land: The War Against Icebreakers Best Twitter–is it still Twitter, considering its ugly new Maga-X logo?—thread of the day: A war on icebreakers in upcoming professional development for teachers. The things people report being asked to do range from silly to downright demeaning. Icebreakers from my own pantheo…

10th Period: All But 5 Ohio Charter High Schools Rank in Bottom 25% of Schools Nationally 10th Period: All But 5 Ohio Charter High Schools Rank in Bottom 25% of Schools Nationally In its latest national rankings, U.S. News & World Report pointed out that generally, charter schools around the country are disproportionately doing well on their national ratings. “Charters show up in disproportionately high rates among the …

Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Heather Cox Richardson: The Lies Embedded in Florida’s Social Studies Curriculum Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Heather Cox Richardson: The Lies Embedded in Florida’s Social Studies Curriculum Heather Cox Richardson, a historian, analyzed the controversial Florida social studies curriculum and explains how they attempt to minimize racism and slavery. Their fault lies not in one or two sentences but in their central idea…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: 10 Years Later: The Continuing Intentional Unraveling of America’s Public Schools Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: 10 Years Later: The Continuing Intentional Unraveling of America’s Public Schools School reform continues to privatize and destroy public schools. August marks ten years since I began blogging. Within that time I have written two books and co-authored a third with Diane Ravitch. I’m proud of all th…

Curmudgucation: Feds Tells SCOTUS To Let Charter School Remain Public Curmudgucation: Feds Tells SCOTUS To Let Charter School Remain Public I have written more than I care to about the Peltier v. Charter Day School case, a case that is nominally about an antediluvian dress code but has ended up hinging on a bigger question– are charter schools really public schools?  Charter Day School says no. Afte…

Radical Eyes for Equity: The Paradox of Fostering Community Norms in the Classroom in an Era of Indoctrination Histrionics Radical Eyes for Equity: The Paradox of Fostering Community Norms in the Classroom in an Era of Indoctrination Histrionics After 18 years teaching high school English, I transitioned to higher education in 2002. For well over a decade, I have been teaching first-year writing to incoming college students, who in many ways struggle w…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Policymakers Err Time and Again about Classroom Teaching Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Policymakers Err Time and Again about Classroom Teaching As a result of living in a different world than teachers do, policymakers make a serious error. Too often, they confuse teacher quality with teaching quality, that is, the personal traits of teachers—dedicated, caring, greg…

Janresseger: Can We Unlearn the Test-and-Punish Lexicon No Child Left Behind Taught Us and Demand Reform? Janresseger: Can We Unlearn the Test-and-Punish Lexicon No Child Left Behind Taught Us and Demand Reform? I have been reading Beyond ESSA, a new report from the National Education Policy Center and the Beyond Test Scores Project, a new report on an old, old subject: the deep and abiding problems with test-based school accountabilit…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Learning to Read in Middle School Teacher in a Strange Land: Learning to Read in Middle School I am fascinated by the increasing politicization—no other word for it—of reading instruction. How to best teach reading has always been contentious in the United States, from the 1950s look-say method featuring Dick and Jane, accused of letting Ivan slip ahead of us in th…

Answer Sheet: The Big Problem(s) With Grades Answer Sheet: The Big Problem(s) With Grades In the early 20th Century, K-12 schools began developing and implementing systems to grade students, with many of them adopting what was already in use in some colleges and universities — the A-F system. Students have been complaining about them ever since, and education historians have…

Progressive Magazine: How Community Schools Can Transform Parent Involvement for the Better Progressive Magazine: How Community Schools Can Transform Parent Involvement for the Better Both common sense and research seem to conclude that parent involvement matters a lot for student success and even for improving schools in general. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s analysis of parent involvement and education…

David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: The Dysfunctional Pursuit of Relevance in Educational Research David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: The Dysfunctional Pursuit of Relevance in Educational Research In this paper, I explore the issue of relevance in educational research. I argue that the chronic efforts by researchers to pursue relevance is counterproductive. Paradoxically, trying to make research more relevant actu…

Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: A New Low for TFA: Some Trainees Only Get About 11 Hours of Student Teaching. Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: A New Low for TFA: Some Trainees Only Get About 11 Hours of Student Teaching. Teach For America’s teacher training has always been the weakest spot of an organization that has no shortage of weak spots. Ask any teacher what the most useful part of their training was and they will tell you that it was their s…