Category: Learnings

Traditional school leaders try to convince their public that consolidating schools will save the taxpayer money. It doesn’t look like that’s true in Vermont. Recently, Vermont Public reported that, “As state and local officials debate what should be done about the rising cost of education, the conversation often returns to Act 46, the 2015 law…

Recently, Rick Hess, an opinion contributor at EducationWeek, interviewed Lindsey Burke, lead author on the education section in Project 2025, the controversial agenda issued earlier this year by the Heritage Foundation. According to Hess, “Given the attention is has drawn, the questions it’s raised, and the fact that it seems likely to be an object…

It’s amazing how America has become focused on issues that are, at best peripheral, when it comes to mattering much in our daily lives. Our politics are filled with these types of issues right now. For example, 7.6% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ+, but the amount of time we spend debating about gay rights,…

More on competency-based learning. Recently, EducationWeek published an article titled “What Educators Have to Say About Competency-Based Education.” The educators’ remarks are mixed – some positive, some negative – but overall one has to wonder, based upon these comments, if competency-based education can ever replace “seat time” within our traditional K-12 public school system. The…

When it comes to assessing learning, it’s time for competency-based outcomes to replace seat time. It’s time for young learners to demonstrate skills – like reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development – versus knowing the 50 states of the United States or the first 20 elements on the periodic chart. As EducationWeek reported recently (“It’s…

When I was a public school leader, I would get really excited when I came across an innovative learning organization, hoping that either my team or others could replicate the idea and scale it. Philadelphia’s Building 21 would have been one of those learning organizations. According to a recent article appearing in The 74, “From…

Part of the problem with getting schools to improve their performance is their leadership’s inability to confront the brutal facts, as leadership guru Jim Collins wrote in his book Good to Great years ago. Instead of being brutally honest with each other, too many traditional school leaders choose to ignore facts that, if confronted, would…

I’ve written about Elliot Washor before in this column. Washor co-founded the Big Picture Company and The Met in Providence, Rhode Island. Both enterprises are considered cutting edge when it comes to thinking about learning in a different way. Most recently, he has become known for his thinking about out of school learning. Washor recently…

Recently, The 74 asked Margaret Raymond to reflect on the past 40 years of American public education, after the release of the report “A Nation at Risk.” Raymond’s conclusory essay to Stanford University’s Hoover Institution’s “A Nation at Risk + 40” research initiative spotlights insights and analysis from experts, educators and policymakers as to what…

Why aren’t our kids better readers? Most people guess that poverty is the culprit, but as The 74’s Chad Aldeman reported last month, ”According to the latest national results, low-income fourth graders read an average of two to three grade levels below their higher-income peers.” “It’s not new that students in poverty have lower scores…