This post is a piece by my favorite education writer, Jay Mathews at the Washington Post. Here's a link to the original. It's his discussion of a new book by Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution, Between the State and the Schoolhouse: Understanding the Failure of Common Core. The book is an examination of why … Continue reading Jay Mathews — Why Plans to Raise Educational Standards Will Never Work
This post is a recent blog entry by Larry Cuban. Here's a link to the original. He is making a strong case against the human capital rationale that has grounded the school reform movement in the last 50 years. The theory is that the primary social contribution of public education is its ability to stimulate … Continue reading Larry Cuban: School Reform Since “A Nation at Risk” Has Done Little to Promote Economic Growth
Here are the syllabi for classes I taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Each syllabus includes links to nearly all course readings, tips for doing the reading, and class slides. As a result you can take the course, either individually and in groups. Feel free to share the syllabi with anyone you want. … Continue reading All of My Course Syllabi, Including Links to Readings, Reading Tips, and Slides
This post is a very recent piece by Larry Cuban, which he posted on his blog two days ago. I just love it. He asks, What's the problem with being an average student? How did average school achievement become redefined as mediocre? This piece picks up on a theme I've been working on in … Continue reading Larry Cuban — Success, Failure, and “Mediocrity” in U.S Schools
This post is an essay by Perry Bacon that was published recently in the Washington Post. Here's a link to the original. The title tells the story. Crisis is an overused word in the politics of American education, and his analysis shows that it doesn't fit the data. See what you think. We don’t have an … Continue reading Perry Bacon — We Don’t Have an Education Crisis in America
This post is a lecture I gave at University of Luxembourg in 2011, which was published in a book, edited by Daniel Tröhler and Ragnhild Barbu, Education Systems in Historical, Cultural, and Sociological Perspectives. It draws on material from my 2010 book, Someone Has to Fail. This essay is one of 21 pieces included in my … Continue reading When Is School the Answer to What Social Problems?
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 is an essay about the formation of the US common school system, which was responsible for forming the American republic during a period in the early 19th century when its survival was in doubt. The essay is an extended excerpt from the second chapter of my book, Someone Has to Fail. I'm posting … Continue reading Formation of the US Common School System
This post is the text of a lecture I gave in 2009 at the University of Berne. It was originally published in the Swiss journal Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Historiographie and then found its way into my 2010 book, Someone Has to Fail. Here is the link to the first published version. It’s about a longstanding problem in American … Continue reading What Schools Can’t Do
This is a piece I wrote as the foreword to a book by J. M. Beach -- Can We Measure What Matters Most? Why Educational Accountability Metrics Lower Student Learning and Demoralize Teachers -- which was published in 2021. For me, this was a chance to provide a brief summary of my thoughts about the problems … Continue reading The Problems that Accountability Metrics Pose for Schooling
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 