This post is a recent essay by Peter Gray published in his Substack. Here's a link to the original. It's the best critique I've seen about the damage done by the Common Core. Here's how he summarizes his argument: Why has Common Core failed even to increase scores in the subject areas of its primary focus? … Continue reading Peter Gray — The Total Failure of the Common Core
This post draws on a discussion I participated in that was published in Comparative Education Review in 2009. It brought together a variety of scholars to comment on a new film about schooling produced by Bob Compton called 2 Million Minutes. The film draws its title from the number of minutes that students around the … Continue reading Schools Should Focus on Producing More Hustlers than Scholars
This post is an essay by River Page about how we don't need more Tiger Moms, which appeared recently in The Free Press. Here's a link to the original. The point is that it's very unhealthy to promote a social and educational system that stresses high academic achievement over other competing values. Education is important but … Continue reading River Page — We Don’t Need More Tiger Moms
This post is a recent essay by Beckie Supiano from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. There's been a lot written lately about the effect that the pandemic had on student learning, and this piece picks up on some of that analysis. But what I find so compelling about this piece … Continue reading How School Reform Deformed Student Learning
This post is an essay by one of my favorite historians, Johann Neem, which appeared two years ago Hedgehog Review. Here's a link to the original. His topic is the critically important question of how we can create a shared narrative for the American people -- one that incorporates the bad parts without denying the good … Continue reading Johann Neem — A Usable Past: Providing a Narrative to House the Facts of American History
This post is a piece that is included in my newish book, Being a Scholar: Reflections on Doctoral Study, Scholarly Writing, and Academic Life. In it I focus on an issue that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while: How to understand the core business model that governs American universities. The answer is in … Continue reading Universities Give Away Knowledge and Sell Degrees
This week's post is a piece I presented at a conference in Switzerland and then published in an obscure book in 2010. Here's the original version. And now it's a chapter in my new book, The Ironies of Schooling. It's a story about the contest for dominance in US education in the early 20th century … Continue reading How Dewey Lost
This post is a piece I published in Teachers College Record in 2014. Here’s a link to the original. It is now a chapter in my new book, The Ironies of Schooling. It’s an analysis of two major players in the world movement for educational accountability: OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the US No Child … Continue reading Let’s Measure What No One Teaches
This post is a piece I published in Kappan in 2000. Here’s a link to the PDF. It’s an analysis of why Americans have long resisted setting educational standards. Of course my timing wasn’t great. Just one year later, the federal government passed the landmark No Child Left Behind law, which established just such a system of standard mandates. Oops. This … Continue reading Resisting Educational Standards
This post is about an issue I’ve wrestled with for years, namely why reforming schools in the U.S. is so difficult. I eventually wrote a book on the subject, Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling, which was published in 2010. But you may not need to read it if you look at this … Continue reading The Chronic Failure of Curriculum Reform
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 