Is Education A Privilege For The Elite?

How textbooks are sabotaging teaching, learning

Textbooks are an obstacle to learning, says Ben Stern, technology integrationist for a middle school in New York City. In this blog post, he writes that textbooks present an easy way out for teachers and students -- allowing them to avoid questions over what should be taught. Technology, Stern writes, such as Internet…

Smartest People In The World: The 10 Smartest People Alive Today

Douglas Reeves Pushes Back on Educational Folklore

From the Marshall Memo #448

In this iconoclastic American School Board Journal article, author/consultant Douglas Reeves notes that a number of strongly-held opinions are folklore – they’re not backed up by facts. “Critical thinking is not criticism,” he says. “Rather, it is the capacity of a person to distinguish claims from evidence.” Here are…

3 Ways To Make Everyone Around You Smarter

A good teacher is hard to keep

Too often, teachers who are consistently successful with students are not given leadership roles that would allow them to reach students beyond their own classrooms.…

What Happens to Student Learning When Teachers Are Absent?

From the Marshall Memo #446

“The mythology surrounding the substitute teacher is not a pretty one,” says reporter Jaclyn Zubrzycki in this Education Week article: “Paper airplanes, lost learning, bullying.” The average teacher is out 10 days a year, and one study found that 37 percent of teachers are absent more than 10 days a year. That’s…

Douglas Reeves Makes the Case for Teaching Handwriting

From the Marshall Memo #446 

In this thoughtful American School Board Journal article, author/consultant Douglas Reeves asks whether teaching cursive is worth the time and effort schools used to put into it. Handwriting is still a hot-button issue for many educators and parents. What’s the right course of action, given the shortage of time in…