Turn Your Princess-Obsessed Toddler Into a Feminist in Eight Easy Steps

What kind do you want? Many reformers deal with bureaucratic, financial, theoretical, and window-dressing stuff that  probably won’t change very much. Bill Gates thought that making all the schools small would save the system. It made no difference. See what I mean?

My theory is that we can improve the schools ONLY by dealing with the rot at the heart of the system. That would be the dysfunctional theories and methods that govern how all of…

The different use of the time has merit, and there are barriers that need to be addressed first.  There are required minutes of instruction in different areas from K through 12.  Those requirements vary from state to state. But often schedules are built based upon past practice without realizing that there may exist an opportunity for change that is not being used. And there are barriers because of state requirements.      …

Professional Learning School Leaders Need and Deserve…

Aha Moments on the Road to Better Teaching

BY MIDDLEWEB · 10/12/2014

Sports and Education Work Well Together

 

Jay P. Greene is the 21st century professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas. Daniel H. Bowen is a post-doctoral fellow at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University.

UPDATED OCTOBER 21, 2014, 10:15 PM

NY Times…

High School Athletes Gain Lifetime Benefits

Kevin Kniffin teaches leadership and management in sports at Cornell University as part of the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. He is on Twitter.

OCTOBER 21, 2014…

School Should Be About Learning, Not Sports

Amanda Ripley, an Emerson senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of "The Smartest Kids in the World — and How They Got That Way." She is on …

'Nice' and racist

In a review in Teachers College Record of Angela Castano's Educated in Whiteness: Good Intentions and Diversity in Schools, Lisa Mazzei writes that Castano critiques how educator engagements with race have become inconspicuous, normal, and "nice." The book problematizes discourses of race in U.S. schools, and illustrates how well-intentioned diversity-related practices solidify inequity and reinscribe whiteness as the norm. Castagno…

Reform isn't rocket science

Why does so much reform produce so little change? asks Jack Schneider in a post on the Answer Sheet blog in The Washington Post. His answer is that most observers see fixing schools as more like baking brownies than launching a rocket: "Mix one good teacher with a solid curriculum; stir in a few books; add a pinch of snazzy technology; and bake for 180 days." What could be so hard? But unlike working educators, most leaders of…