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…

The Nobel Committee has chosen two advocates for children to share the Nobel Peace Prize. Those two advocates come from different countries, with different religions. Those trying to lead education forward all with different voices, coming from different perspectives, are all fighting for the quality of the system. All the constituencies, parents, teachers, leaders, policy makers, pundits, enter the conversation about education with different opinions, but all are fighting…

October 14, 2014

Dear High School Student-Athlete:

There are many reasons to participate on a high school sports team.  Movement is the only way to nourish your brain.  A coach can be another adult in your life who wants you to succeed.  Your teammates become friends for life, and what’s cooler than representing your community?

In the New York Times bestselling book SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by Harvard…

The proposed newer version of the ISLLC Standards increases the number of standards to 11 and consistently adds the words "well being" when talking about the success of every student as the introductory stem to every standard descriptor.  As in the earlier standards, the 2014 standards are followed by functions that describe ways in which leaders can demonstrate each standard. It is about action. The functions include words like those in the standards: develop, nurture,…

We have no meaningful evidence at hand indicating that these tests can accurately distinguish between well taught and badly taught students.” So says testing expert James Popham in the recent PDK Journal regarding the use of tests to evaluate teachers and principals.

There is much evidence against the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers and administrators but those in charge at the Federal and State level seem to adopt the “don’t confuse me with the facts” attitude. …

Where Do Biases Start? A Challenge to Educators

Ed Week

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak to a few hundred African-American male high school students in Jacksonville, Fla. The young people there were searching for answers in the…

One Day That Changed Everything…

 This is an update on the wonderful videos made by HSLDA. If only everyone America could see both…

 The short one at 22 minutes is called "Building the Machine – the parent interviews". For some reason it is now unavailable. The substitute here is the PREVIEW, which is better in a way because it's only 7 minutes, and here is that link:  …