A Better Path to Learning

Category: Learnings

  • Advice to a School Board Member

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    A while back, I heard from a friend down in Texas that he was running for the school board – specifically the Houston school board. Yesterday, he wrote this on Facebook: “I believe in the promise of public education, and I’ve spent my career helping students and schools live up to that promise. Thirty-three years…

  • School World v. Real World Revisited

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    Too many traditional schools lie dormant during the summer months. One way our traditional K-12 system could appear to be interested in moving to more of a anytime, anywhere model of learning was if they committed to more activities for kids while involving adult learning leaders. This week EducationWeek posted an article titled “Summer Jobs…

  • The Power of Anywhere Learning

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    When I worked in public education, I witnessed a lot of stress between young learners, basically because all those kids had to report to one place – a place called school. You had football jocks, science nerds, gay and straight kids, and a host of different racial and ethnic groups, all under one roof. We…

  • What a Mess

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    I’m back from our Minnesota lake house. Here’s hoping everyone had a restful holiday weekend. While on vacation, I ran across an article The 74 published online titled “Tiny Indiana District With Online School Worth Millions Ordered To Close.” Here are excerpts from piece: “The Union School Corporation in the tiny town of Modoc –…

  • The Right to Discriminate

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    When does a public school stop being a public school? And when does school choice stop being school choice and begins to be “learner choice”? The 74 reported recently that, “In a landmark 2022 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said states can’t exclude faith-based schools form voucher programs because they practice religion. The opinion, Carson…

  • Headed Right in the Wrong Direction

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    It’s Thursday and it’s Juneteenth. I’m a big country and western fan, and Vern Gosdin is one of my favorites. Gosdin recorded a song titled “Right in the Wrong Direction” back in 1990. It’s a song about a common country and western theme – cheating. But it could also be the title of Donald Trump’s…

  • Changing Times

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    It’s Wednesday, June 18th – I’m back from a short absence. Members of the Democratic Party have started to question whether the way our traditional K-12 system currently runs is the best way to get all kids smarter and stronger when it comes to reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills. Instead, the Democrats have…

  • How to Improve (Teacher) Morale

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    I use a lot of EducationWeek material in my postings. The information they provide and the reporting they offer is excellent – usually. But this week they shared information for district leaders titled “The District Leaders’ Guide to Shoring Up Teacher Morale.” I’ve been part of and around the K-12 educational world since 1984, and…

  • Time…The Final Frontier

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    Time. It’s one of the most difficult challenges for our K-12 system to master. Ask them about anytime, anywhere learning and they give you a serious “deer in the headlight” stare. The traditional system is much more comfortable with the time allotted for learning they’ve been using for, well, at least 180 years now. Around…

  • Trump’s Cuts

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    I wonder who decided the cuts made at the U.S. Department of Education and exactly how those decisions were made. Did the decisionmakers have any educational experience? Were decisions to keep a program or shuck it based on data? The whole process was just so, well – vague. But that’s kind of how our current…