In 1983 the landmark publication of the report A Nation at Risk seemed to shake our nation from its slumber regarding the scary truth about education in America. It detailed how there were serious problems in schools in this country and recommended fixes for what ailed schools. Unfortunately, twenty-eight years later there are still many things that are wrong in education, ...

My first year teaching in Compton, California, I asked some of my students who they thought was the meanest teacher in the school. The consensus was unanimous: "Ms. Wysinger is SO mean! She makes you do all your homework. If you don't, you miss your recess. And she's always giving quizzes. And you can't talk in her class." After a few ...

If businesses operated like schools, we would first need to break the United States into geographic areas. It would be the responsibility of the businesses in that area to hire every adult in the area between the ages of 18 and 65. The businesses would have to hire everyone: the medically fragile (and provide nursing care), the developmentally delayed, those with ...

Here in New York State, Governor Cuomo is making it his business to tie teacher evaluations to standardized test scores. The teacher’s union is fighting it, and well they should, because judging teachers on their students’ test scores is about as fair as judging Cuomo on the state’s economic condition. In both cases no one would get rehired, and that is ...

Why do classrooms and schools operate almost the same way they did 100 years ago? A group of middle schoolers from the Dallas-Fort Worth area began asking themselves this question during a class discussion of Orson Scott Card's science fiction novel Ender's Game. More importantly, they began to wonder, "Could children, using the internet, have a dramatic impact on the world ...

I love hip hop, and when I was a classroom teacher, pretty much all of my students loved hip hop, too. So it's not far fetched to suggest that teachers working with low-income black and brown kids could learn a thing or two from the genre. At least, that's the thinking of teacher, hip-hop artist, and author Sam Seidel, who believes ...

Teachers are increasingly bringing the real-time communication power of Twitter into the classroom to help students learn. But I've come to the conclusion that it's great for helping teachers learn as well. Twitter has simply become one of the best places for teachers to collaborate, share solutions to common classroom problems, and discuss education policy. In fact, it might just be ...

In case you missed it, about two weeks ago the Pearson Foundation announced that it was receiving funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a national K-12 curriculum. Gates ponied up $3 million to have Pearson develop 24 courses, 11 in math and 13 in English-Language Arts. At the announcement, both foundations positioned it as the next logical ...