With his new hit video Word Crimes, “Weird Al” is doing a great service for American education.

In particular, he’s attacking the non-teaching of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and everything else. He's got people talking about these important issues.

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He does not mention the slinky sophistry that…

Often left to the pervue of the librarian, copyright information, as all else in our schools, needs to come out of its silo and be integrated into all of our classrooms. Understanding copyright and fair use is something that arises when we write but has relevance in so many other aspects of our lives. Students, teachers, and building and district leaders should be alert about these issues.  It is a matter of character. …

The article was in EdWeek but the first two paragraphs were posted here on 2.0, however, you could only reply to Nancy Flanagan if you subscribed to EdWeek. So here is a sample of my column on Education:

I disagree with Ravitch’s understanding. Many charter schools here in NYS are Public Charter Schools which means, primarily, that the teachers are not members of the Union. The Union (UFT) has a strange relationship to teachers and administrators in terms of its effect on…

Robert E. Slavin Become a fan 

Director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University

Evidence, Brown, and…

It’s a common feature throughout public school education: methods that not only don’t work but seem designed not to work.

This is so puzzling that when you first encounter the possibility, your mind rejects it. Why would people in education design methods that defeat education?

 I think New Math was a glaring example. Reform Math continues the same tradition. The Internet is full of videos of children crying because they cannot understand the…