A Better Path to Learning

Category: Learnings

  • Einstein Was Right, Even If He Didn’t Say It

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    Although he never said it, Albert Einstein is credited with saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Recently I read an article by Robert Pondiscio, requested by the New York Post, asking him to comment on the dismal NAEP scores released recently. Here’s what Pondiscio…

  • What Is Wrong With Us?

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    Traditionalists just can’t help but continue to blame device use for falling test scores. The latest to blame smartphones for our kids’ inability to read and solve problems at proficient levels is Martin R. West, academic dean and a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. West writes in a recent EducationWeek…

  • Equitable Funding Isn’t That Equitable

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    Happy birthday to my wife of 39 years! Today is her big day. Happy Birthday sweetie! According to a new study covered in a recent article by The 74, although low-performing districts have received more money when it comes to per pupil expenditures, the additional money funded did not make a difference when it came…

  • AI Forces a Change in Learning

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    So much media coverage on artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on the teaching and learning inside our K-12 public education system is focused on what adults – teachers, administrators, political stakeholders, parents – are saying about what most see as an existential threat to how kids learn moving forward. But we haven’t heard much,…

  • No Teachers and No Curriculum

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    Happy Constitution Day! My wife is convinced that my ideas about a new learning system are not scalable. Hiring a gifted learning coach, one for literacy and one for problem-solving, and paying them upward of $100,000 a year for their services, expecting a learning cohort to show 4 ½ years of reading, writing, and math…

  • They’re Not Reading

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    Kids aren’t reading as much as they did. Popular opinion blames social media. But maybe there are other reasons. Recently, The 74 published an article titled “Why Are So Few Kids Reading For Pleasure?”: … “Over the course of two generations, from 1984 to 2023, the proportion of 13-year-olds who said they ‘never or hardly…

  • Old Motels

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    Kids don’t have to attend school to learn. Today, the world is their classroom, and they should be given credit for their learning wherever and whenever that learning happens. When we ran a personalized learning lab school in Houston, one of the big takeaways was that the city offered a multitude of locations for learning…

  • The Social Prescription

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    Our traditional K-12 system has lost its creativity, if it ever had it. Few thinkers inside that system approach challenges and problems with the question “How can we make this better?” Instead, our K-12 leaders are more than willing to double-down on what they believe has worked for them, and kids, in the past –…

  • New Orleans’ Schools – 20 Years After Katrina, Part 2

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    In the second installment of a two-part ABPTL series, we continue to look at the reasons why New Orlean schools improved and why those schools still have a long way to go to achieve equity between all K-12 learners: “From 60th to 6th.” “In 2005, New Orleans schools ranked 60th among Louisiana’s 68 districts in…

  • New Orleans’ Schools – 20 Years After Katrina

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    It’s been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, Louisiana. My wife and I happened to be in the Crescent City that weekend. I was scheduled to attend a College Board leadership conference, so we decided to make a weekend of it. As I was riding in from the airport, I noticed…