Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence

by Laurence Steinberg — May 15, 2015



American high schools continue to show lackluster performance relative to high schools in comparably developed countries and to American elementary and middle schools. Laurence Steinberg argues that the problem isn't our schools, but the ways in which we raise our…

Chart: State Teachers Of Year Prioritize Out-Of-School Factors

Teachers of the Year: Family Stress and Poverty Are Biggest Obstacles to Classroom Success…

Poorest Students Often Miss Out on Gifted Classes

Embracing Difference: Tai D. Matthews leads a lesson on ancient Greece in her 6th grade humanities class at the Paterson (N.J.) Academy for the Gifted and Talented. She says the school’s cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity enriches her teaching. 

—Mark Abramson for Education…

A Time and Place For Buy-In…

At a time when schools are feeling pushed and pulled from outside forces, this is another opportunity for the exercise of local control.  Any time anyone or any organization can take action, it is empowering.  Schools and the people within them need to feel empowered...for without that feeling, we are inviting students into a depressed environment, aren't we?  …

Coding Skills Empower Us All |The Maker Issue

Differentiate Your Direct Instruction: Make Content Accessible to All Students

By Stacy Davison May 14, 2015 12:00 pm…

Uneven grad rates, but this can change

According to the 6th annual Building a Grad Nation report, the national high school graduation rate between 2011 and 2013 hit a record high of 81.4 percent. For the third year in a row, the nation continues on pace to attain 90 percent on-time graduation by 2020. Yet improvement in states and large districts has varied considerably. Some, including those that are majority low-income and minority, made large strides; others lost…

Invisible black girls

The urgent focus on interventions for boys of color has rendered black girls all but invisible, writes Melinda Anderson for The Atlantic. "The gender-exclusive focus on [black] boys as ground zero ... continues to undermine the well-being of our entire community," says Kimberlé Crenshaw of UCLA and Columbia, co-founder of the African American Policy Forum. Present discourse around boys of color is largely driven by President Obama's initiative My…

Four Lessons from the Opt-Out Debate By Robert Pondiscio…

It is difficult enough to truly hear what we are being told. We can turn to the Chinese symbol for listening to remember that deep listening involves eyes, ears, and heart.

Pressures and stresses provoke a lot of negative feelings. Those negative feelings can easily be dismissed as "typical" end of year complaints. They well may be the same typical end of year complaints that have arisen year after year.  Perhaps no one was listening. …

The End of Separation of Church and State?…

Once upon a time, believe it or not, kids routinely learned to read in the first grade. Having learned to read, they then started reading to learn. Wow, what a beautiful thing that was.

 Our Education Establishment has very skillfully undermined this age-old template. Now, due to an onslaught of bogus approaches, we have children in the sixth, seventh or eighth grades who are still in the first grade, by traditional standards.

 You know this is true because…

Let Kids Fidget in Class: Why It Can Be Good For Those with ADHD…