Public Policy

Has testing reached a tipping point?

By Sam Chaltain on January 30th, 2013…

Bill Gates: schools need a better way to evaluate teachers

Combating the ‘Culture of Can’t’

School leaders have more power than they think

By Frederick Hess and Whitney Downs…

The Case for a Teacher Bar Exam

We're Teaching History Wrong

The way history is taught in U.S. high schools should be completely overhauled. For the vast majority of students, history is presented as a litany of disconnected names, dates, and events to be…

Armed Teachers and Guards Won't Make Schools Safer

Amid the understandable, almost unbearable, sorrow in the aftermath of the shootings in Newtown, Conn., last month, we must try to put this tragedy into perspective. Accordingly, educational leaders, parents…

Bringing Students to Life With Memoir Writing

Eminent scholar Walter Ong said writing "is utterly invaluable and indeed…

Reclaiming Your Teacher Mojo

The moderator asked a real softball of a question of the teachers on our panel: "What can administrators do to better support teachers?" Easy, right? I should have whaled that one out of the…

Meet the Champs

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: January 30, 2013 …

James Popham on Formative Assessment’s Moment in the Sun

“Teachable moments are really quite special, and they don’t come along that often,” says assessment guru James Popham in this Education Week article. “A teacher who wastes a teachable moment, therefore, commits a pedagogical sin of omission.” Popham believes formative assessments are having an “advocatable moment” that educators should seize. 

Why is this such an…

John Wooden, Teacher Extraordinaire

In this intriguing article in Quest, Bradley Alan Ermeling (University of California, Los Angeles) shows how John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, used four key insights on teacher inquiry. Wooden always insisted that everything he did with his highly successful teams from 1946 to 1975 he learned teaching high-school English in the 1930s. Here’s what he did with his teams and…

'Anybody? Anybody?' What Ferris Bueller Got Right

JOHN…

4 Principles for Fostering and Maintaining Authentic 21st Century Leadership

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for this reference.

California Jerry Brown just gave his State of the State address. Here’s an excerpt:

The laws that are in fashion demand tightly constrained curricula and reams of accountability data. All the better if it requires quiz-bits of information, regurgitated at regular intervals and stored in vast computers. Performance metrics, of course, are invoked like talismans. Distant authorities crack the whip, demanding…