Great Minds creates curricula in math, English language arts, and science for grades PK–12. I’m its founder and CEO, and when Covid-19 hit, we were ill-prepared for digital distance learning, like most everyone else.
At least we have stopped pretending that we’re making high school more modern.
America faces three urgent challenges right now: beating Covid-19, reforming law enforcement in the wake of the George Floyd's killing, and rebooting K-12 education. Each creates the opportunity for major, lasting change. Yet that won’t happen without successful models to view, sustained leadership with a modicum of centrism or bipartisanship, and—toughest of all—cultural shifts that demand and entrench those changes.
This spring’s school closures have challenged us to look at many things differently and to be open-minded, creative, and brave about moving toward necessary change. As we consider reopening schools in the fall, let’s hold on to that mindset and ask what should special education become? Does the forty-five-year-old federal law (IDEA) need a thorough redo? We believe it does.
The start of a new school year is always filled with challenges. New teachers, new classes, and new expectations can be difficult for both teachers and students. But what if teachers and students haven’t been in school for six months or more? How can schools try and prepare to get back to a sense of normalcy after all of this?
Earlier this month, John Winters, associate professor from Iowa State University, released a study, What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings Across States and Metropolitan Areas, which examined the economic premium of earning different college credentials across all fif
Michael J. Petrilli’s recent article “Half-Time High School may be just what students need” is compelling. Yet proposals to cut school time in half in grades nine through twelve may be only half right.
Most people agree that a college education is a worthwhile investment for a young person. For example, across the U.S., bachelor’s degree holders earn on average 55 percent higher salaries than those with no education beyond high school. However, it is less well understood that there are stark geographical differences in how much return one gets on their educational investment.
In a few weeks, the planning underway for the start of the coming school year could take an interesting and unexpected turn.
As quickly as the NBA put its season on hold and the summer Olympics rescheduled, schools across America switched to “school from home.” It happened almost overnight. Regardless of teacher training, parent comfort, or students’ technology access—remote learning was the new reality.
All over the country, states, districts and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by ever-changing and imperfect understanding of the virus itself.
The idea that all postsecondary education on average is good is misleading. The truth is, there’s significant variation in which academic degrees bring workers the most value, and why they do.
As protests against racism and police brutality erupt across the nation—during a worldwide pandemic, no less—Americans are coming to face the harsh reality that life as they previously knew it is no more. Until there’s a vaccine, the “normal” that was pre-Covid-19 can never be again, and the “normal” that was pre-George Floyd must never be again.
America’s schools could learn a lot about how to handle two hot-button issues from Joe Biden’s comments in response to George Floyd’s horrific murder: how to model and cultivate empathy for our fellow citizens, and how to teach an inclusive version of history. He carved a middle path between right and left that is anything but the mushy middle.
On May 21, driven by exquisitely progressive intentions, the regents of the University of California made the worst policy decision in the recent history of American higher education: to eliminate SAT and ACT admissions testing for in-state applicants to all nine of their undergraduate campuses, which comprise one of the country’s biggest and historically most prestigious state systems.
1. Problems with models Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman wrote about models: [Physicists have] learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don’t like a theory is not the essential question.
The pandemic forced schools across the country to close and institute some form of remote learning, but their methods varied widely. To see just how much, analysts at the American Enterprise Institute and the Center on Reinventing Public Education have been examining how different public school districts and charter school networks have responded.
Even in the best of times, the path from high school to college is fraught. And these are not the best of times. COVID-19 disruptions have turned the light haze of college transition into a blinding fog.
The sudden shift to remote learning this spring demanded that schools innovate and adapt with incredible speed. The entire education world is trying to serve millions of suddenly home-bound students, and there’s simply no precedent for a challenge on that scale.
The shutdown of America’s high schools has deprived millions of students of rites we previously took for granted. Coursework can be transferred online to some degree, but no virtual environment can replace football games, choir concerts, musicals, and so much more that’s part of the American high school experience.
In early 2019, the Aspen Institute released the findings of the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. The report concluded that non-academic factors—such as managing emotions, goal setting, empathy, interpersonal relationships, self-regulation, and more—were vital ingredients to boosting academic achievement for all students.
There’s a long list of policy problems we should have solved before a global pandemic turned almost everything into a crisis.
All over the country, states, districts, and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by our ever-changing yet imperfect understanding of the virus itself.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
In the summer of 2013, After New York’s adoption of new, more rigorous testing benchmarks under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, student test scores plummeted around the state, wiping out years of paper gains.
This week we're hosting "Teacher to Chief," a special episode with members of Chiefs for Chan
We are finally nearing the chasm. Two months ago, the nation was rightly applauding K–12 educators for having to make the adjustment to a virtual classroom with almost no warning or planning.
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Those best positioned to push back against much of the nonsense that courses through our schools are school board members. And those interested in effecting positive change should adopt a three-part agenda: let our schools refocus on preparing children for informed citizenship; restore character, virtue, and morality to the head of the education table; and build an education system that confers dignity, respect, and opportunity upon every youngster.
Many urgent challenges await the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and its governing board (NAGB) in the coming months, including whether the scheduled biennial testing of reading and math in grades four and eight is feasible during the 2020–21 school year.
