Category: Learnings

Last week Houston voters defeated a school bond worth $4.4 billion. The bond would have financed rebuilding the district’s school and technology infrastructure. After nearly 6 out of 10 Houstonians voting in the school district’s bond election said no to the bond proposal, analysts pointed to the fact that the vote became more of a…

Traditional K-12 leaders aren’t the most visionary folks around these days. They’re still stuck in a box that thinks the school year should be August to May, the school day should be 8 to 3, and that kids need to come to places called school to learn. Some of us see learning opportunities all over…

We have a terrible habit when discussing our current K-12 system to recognize it’s dismal results overall, but then try to leave the readers with a glimmer of hope by focusing on schools and school districts that are anomalies to that failing outlook. Witness an opinion piece appearing in The Hechinger Report last month, written…

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: When you work in schools, you work in two worlds. One world is about getting young learners stronger and smarter in their reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development abilities. The other world is about rewarding adults, whether they be teachers, administrators, staff, parents, or vendors receiving…

My wife and I keep noticing there is one thing noticeably absent when we walk or drive past schoolyards or public parks – kids playing. Part of the problem with kids choosing not to play in their schoolyards or neighborhood parks is the fact that many of those places are run down and some are…

How many transformational teachers were you lucky enough to have during your K-12 schooling experience? 10? 15? More? Less? Now think back to why those teachers were transformational. I’m guessing it wasn’t because of their knowledge of math or that they were able to teach noun/verb relationships like no other. No, those teachers, and other…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between our traditional K-12 public school system and a personalized learning one. I’d like to borrow some of David Brooks’s TED talk on “Should You Live for Your Resume…or Your Eulogy?” Brooks is an opinion columnist at The New York Times and an author of numerous…

Devin Vodicka and Katie Martin, from the Learner-Centered Collaborative, are smart people. Theoretically, both are spot on when it comes to what young learners need in their lives to become smarter and stronger with their reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills. There’s only one problem. Most of what they preach can’t be done to…

The Raleigh News & Observer reported this week that, “…Democrat Mo Green has a 2-to-3 point lead over Republican Michele Morrow in the race for state superintendent of public instruction. The race has received more attention than normal for a down-ballot race due to…coverage of Morrow’s history of controversial social media posts.” Dana Milbank, opinion…

Our traditional K-12 public school system doesn’t know how to scale successful start-up programs well. For example, small tutoring programs, started after the COVID-19 pandemic to catch kids up in their reading, writing, and problem-solving tasks, have struggled to grow to impact more kids. Recently, The 74 reported that, “As schools struggled to overcome the…