This is the time that calls for leadership with a capital "L".  Building leaders cannot be successful as one or the other, managers or instructional leaders, nor can their superintendents. In order to meet the demands of this century, the leaders' success can only be found in becoming a Leader. Those in positions of power, authority and responsibility, who are responsible for safety, making sure rules are followed, records are accurately kept, jobs are done properly, instruction is…

Ideas and Tools to Give Everyone a Voice…

 Here is one of my favorite themes: Almost everything we see discussed is the SURFACE of education. The skin. The outside. The superficial stuff that doesn't really matter.

 I think our Education Establishment is truly brilliant at keeping people distracted and bewildered. The trick is to get people discussing things that are not primary. Throw out five or 10 excuses for why the schools are bad – kids are lazy, parents don't care, there's not enough money, the Internet is…

Against Personalized Learning

Annie Murphy Paul

A couple of years ago, educator Benjamin Riley kicked up a fuss with a blog post provocatively titled “Don’t Personalize Learning.” Personalized learning, of course, is a very popular notion; as he slyly noted, it’s “a head-nodder phrase”: “Sprinkle the word into virtually any conversation or speech regarding education, and you’ll typically see at least a handful of heads nodding in the room in happy…

Shaping Our Tools to Fit the Brain

Annie Murphy Paul

We all have experience with things like ergonomic chairs: seats that are designed with the human body in mind. The designer of an ergonomic chair has to have a solid working knowledge of the human body and how it operates in order to build a chair that will be comfortable, supportive, and appealing to sit in. The same is true of the technological tools we use: the people who design them have to…

Using the Social Brain to Promote Learning

Annie Murphy Paul

A recent brain-imaging study showed just how powerfully teenagers are influenced by their peers. That's not necessarily bad news, however: “If your teen’s friends are displaying positive behavior, then it’s fabulous that your teen will see that behavior and be influenced by it,” said study author Lauren Sherman, a researcher at UCLA. Sherman's observation lines up with a favorite idea of mine:…

Three Ways I’ve Become A Better Listener

By Crystal Morey May 27, 2016 8:25 am…

David Brooks on Deciding Better

In this New York Times column, David Brooks explores what he calls the “choice explosion” over the last 30 years – the ever-expanding variety of options Americans have on what we eat, media sources, spiritual beliefs, lifestyles, identities. Our culture has always embraced individual choice, says Brooks, as compared, for example, to the Japanese, who prefer…

Why 10th Grade Should Be the New Senior Year

• Ed Week

In 1983, "A Nation at Risk" focused political decisionmakers on the necessity of reframing public education into an accountability model designed to provide minimum standards of…

“Transforming” Public Schools: Enough already with an Overhyped Word!…

Recycling Poverty, Segregated Schools, and Academic Achievement: Then and Now

by Larry Cuban

Preparing for the Future: What Educational Assessment Must Do

by Randy Elliot Bennett — 2014

Background/Context: There is little question that education is changing, seemingly quickly and in some cases dramatically. The mechanisms through which individuals learn are shifting from paper-based ones to electronic media. Simultaneously, the nature of what individuals…