Cross-posted on Education Week Most of the arguments I have heard against the Common Core State Standards strike me as hardly worth responding to, but I came across a piece on the subject the other day by Yong Zhao that is rather thoughtful. Zhao is presidential...
Cross-posted on Education Week So we are now informed that the application from the State of California for a waiver from the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act has been denied. This, we are told, is because California agreed with some items on the...
Cross-posted on Education Week On December 17, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released what their incoming Executive Director, Chris Minnich, called a "call to action" on teacher quality: Our Responsibility, Our Promise: Transforming Educator Preparation and Entry into the Profession. So it was,...
Cross-posted on Education Week Since Education Week invited me to write a blog about a year ago, I have written all the posts myself. Below you will find a guest blog, from Jal Mehta, an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In it,...
Cross-posted on Education Week Everyone, it seems, agrees that teacher quality is key to student achievement. But how should we improve teacher quality? The field has been dominated in recent years by those whose answer is to get rid of the worst teachers. It is the...
Cross-posted on Education Week Much has been written in recent months about the skills gap — the gap between the skills people seem to have and skills that employers need. So, when I saw that 60 Minutes was doing a segment on the topic last week,...
Cross-posted on Education Week I just returned from a week in Australia and another in Singapore, and found much food for thought in both. Mining is by far Australia's biggest industry. But that does not mean that it is Australia's biggest employer. I learned that once a...
Cross-posted on Education Week We were gathered around a table in the office of a key state official. In the middle of the table was a chart. On the vertical axis was a scale showing the scores of entering students in the state's teacher education institutions...
Cross-posted on Education Week I recently read with horror of students in South Korea who arrive at school early by American standards, stay through lunch and dinner, and don't get home until after midnight. This is their regular routine! Little wonder, I thought, that they score...
Cross-posted on Education Week A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the theory and practice of choice and markets in the education arena. I got a couple of responses I would like to share with you. One from Adam Emerson at the Thomas...