Category: Learnings

This week, Robin Lake, Executive Director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, wrote an article for The 74 online titled, “10 Predictions About Learning Recovery, Innovation in Public Education in 2024.” According to the article, “Robin Lake looks into her crystal ball at a possible future of state takeovers, school staffing shifts, personalized AI,…

This week, Robin Lake, Executive Director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, wrote an article for The 74 online titled, “10 Predictions About Learning Recovery, Innovation in Public Education in 2024.” According to the article, “Robin Lake looks into her crystal ball at a possible future of state takeovers, school staffing shifts, personalized AI,…

It seems like “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” has become an overly controversial phrase in certain circles of society. Some want to connect these three words with the “woke” culture, suggesting that somehow emphasizing diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in the workplace, or in places like schools, is a bad thing. The Harvard Business Review published an…

This week, I wrote the 350th column for A Better Path to Learning. When I started the column, I really didn’t have an interest to write on how the traditional public school system could be saved. Currently there are too many bad schools and too many kids struggling in all schools to think that. Instead,…

When we ran our personalized learning lab in Houston nearly a decade ago, we paid our two learning coaches around $100,000 each to make 50 middle school-aged learners smarter and stronger. In order to earn that type of salary, these two coaches had to demonstrate 1 ½ years of academic growth for each of the…

I bought some Girl Scout cookies recently and did some grocery shopping at the same time. As I rolled my cart up and down the aisles, I couldn’t help but notice the group of Girl Scouts and how they were working together. It seemed like all of them, eight or nine in number, understood what…

When I was a school leader, I was a big fan of Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs. Rick DuFour, superintendent and past principal of Adlai E. Stevenson High School, brought Professional Learning Community school improvement work into the national spotlight during the 1990’s. Professional Learning Communities, made up of the adult learning leaders inside a…

Part of the problem with the traditional school system is that it has prioritized efficiency over effectiveness – even though the system isn’t that efficient. The traditional school system struggles with effectiveness, especially when it comes to building relationships between all students and the adults who serve them. The system depends on schools that are…

Happy Valentine’s Day! In addition to February being the month for lovers, it’s also the month to recognize and celebrate the contributions African-Americans have made to this country. I’ve gone on record about my skepticism of only giving a month to recognize the significance of any group – African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ+. It seems that…

A big problem with our public school system is that they have established goals over the past 50 years that might not equal the overall outcomes we want for our students. Performing well on high stakes tests, high attendance rates, and excellent accountability ratings have been the goals, but have they led to making our…