WHAT WE’RE READING
Alec Thompson looks at how Scotland abandoned its Great Tradition, a curriculum centered on content knowledge within a common core of subjects. Writing before the latest PISA scores showed Scotland tanking across the board compared to England, Alec discusses how abandoning a common course of rigorous study in favor of skills-based learning led to declining student achievement. It’s a fascinating history lesson on Scottish schools and another sign that England was right to embrace a content-rich curriculum.
EXTRA CREDIT:
Jennifer C. Berkshire, “Americans Are Turning Against School Vouchers”
Allysia Finley, “Yes, Children Really Are Getting Dumber”
Mike Goldstein and Jenny Anderson, “Natalie’s HS volleyball team cut 40 girls during tryouts. They didn’t find another sport: they found their phones”
Emily Hamilton and Yonah Freemark, “One big reason nobody’s walking to school anymore”
Rick Hess, “Schools of Distraction”
Joanne Jacobs, “NY regent: Testing students is like asking a fish to climb a tree”
Liam Julian, “Students are self-censoring in civics class”
Pat O’Donnell, “We’ve been treating college as a career plan, but it’s failing too many students”
Kathleen Porter-Magee, “The quickest way to expand school choice is to fill empty private school seats”
Jason Riley, “The SAT Didn’t Create the Education Gap”
Alex Wolf, “What is happening with the Texas Education Freedom Accounts?”
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation. Click here to subscribe for sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates, curated commentary from across the ed-policy world, and lively discussion—including reader reactions and pushback.
