Cross-posted at Education Week The nations with the best-performing education systems have two things in common that have nothing to do with the specific education policies and practices they have embraced. The first has to do with the goals they have chosen to embrace. The second...
Cross-posted at Education Week David Brooks wrote a column that ran in the New York Times on May 1 that got me thinking. In it, he points out that the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood that Freddie Gray lived in was not exactly neglected. Yes, Gray was poor. But...
Cross-posted at Education Week One of many features of high performing education systems is a qualifications system. A qualifications system defines key gateways, the same for all students, as they progress from the first grade through the end of high school. There are only a few...
Cross-posted at Education Week My organization is currently advising a state on a comprehensive state education reform plan based on the strategies used by those countries with the most successful education systems. At a statewide meeting a couple of weeks ago, I was asked how I...
Cross-posted at Education Week In my last blog, I described how high school textbooks that used to be written at the 12th-grade level for 12th graders are now written at the 7th- or 8th-grade level. I cited a report that said that many community college teachers...
Cross-posted at Education Week In their magisterial book The Race Between Education and Technology, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz tell us how the United States led the world in educational attainment from the middle of the 19th century well into the second half of the 20th...
Cross-posted at Education Week In my last blog, I told a rather inspiring story of how this very attractive country, a former Soviet satellite, flat on its back when the Soviet Union came apart, has come roaring back to create a vibrant internet-based economy and ascend...
Cross-posted at Education Week You've never been to Estonia? You owe it to yourself to go. We just returned and the warm glow of the visit has not yet worn off. We cannot wait to go back. What these modest, friendly and highly educated people have pulled...
Cross-posted at Education Week A few years ago, my team and I were doing research in a high school in a Midwestern community. We found ourselves in the classroom of a long-serving high school vocational education teacher, standing around a workbench in his woodshop. He was...
Cross-posted at Education Week Geoff Masters, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Council for Educational Research, is one of the treasures of Australia. Not just my opinion. He holds the Medal of the Order of Australia, the highest honor the Australian government can bestow on...