Category: Learnings

Grading. Ugh! If there was one noteworthy failure in my career as a school leader, it would be my inability to train my teachers to grade fairly and consistently across grade levels and content areas. I was never successful in getting 9th grade English teachers or 11th grade chemistry teachers to align their grading practices…

Microschools, a collection of small numbers of young learners, are growing across America. What some parents learned about their public school during the pandemic (that some of those schools weren’t good places for their kids) launched a learning pod (even smaller versions of microschools) and microschool explosion that hasn’t slowed since 2020. Traditional public schools…

When we opened our personalized learning lab school in Houston around 10 years ago, visitors complimented us on our creative and innovative practices. They were amazed at how much time we spent focused on learners, specifically how they grew in their reading, writing, and problem-solving abilities, how they were able to build relationships with their…

On this Leap Day, 2024, I thought I might continue the prediction series started a few days ago when I shared the Center on Reinventing Public Education director Robin Lake’s prognostications for 2024. I’m not sure all of my predictions will come true in one year, so let’s just say we can revisit these “ten”…

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…