This post is a piece I published a few years ago in Kappan. Here’s a link to the original. It’s a response to an essay by Jal Mehta proposing a new US grammar of schooling, and it refers to a piece I wrote for Kappan with my take on understanding the roots of this grammar. In my response … Continue reading The Attractions of Doing School
This post is an essay by Carl Hendrick -- The Blind Regulator: Ashby's Law and the Unavoidable Logic of Instructional Design. It appeared in his Substack, The Learning Dispatch, which I highly recommend. Here's a link to the original. In it he addresses a central problem facing systems of instruction. Here's the short version: "If learners … Continue reading Carl Hendrick — The Blind Regulator: Ashby’s Law and the Unavoidable Logic of Instructional Design
This post is an opinion piece that Deborah Malizia and I just published in EdSource. Here's a link to the original. This analysis builds on two previous op-eds that we published over the last several years: Schools Are at the Root of the Youth Mental Health Crisis School’s Shift from Community to Competition Can Harm … Continue reading How Our Education System Fuels Our Political Divides
The post is an essay by Eli Stark-Elster from his Substack. Here's a link to the original. His argument is that -- although there's a lot of talk now about the damage that social media are doing to children and major efforts to ban social media use for anyone under 16 -- there's a bigger … Continue reading Eli Stark-Elster — School Is Way Worse for Kids than Social Media
This post is a review essay by Becca Rothfeld published recently in the Washington Post. Here's a link to the original. The review focuses on the book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, by the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen. The latter is a connoisseur of games, who appreciate how the rule-bound metrics of … Continue reading Becca Rothfeld — A Philosopher’s Case for Living Playfully Without Keeping Score
This post is about an issue I 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 … Continue reading The Chronic Failure of Curriculum Reform
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
