Tag: schools

  • If You Don’t Believe Me Revisited

    America’s public schools are floundering. Incremental progress just isn’t acceptable when you think of how many kids are falling behind in their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills. If you’re white or Asian-American, you probably are having a good experience as a K-12 student in American public schools. But if you’re black, brown, or poor, you’re…

  • 12 Shifts, Part 2

    Getting Smart’s columnist Kyle Wagner wrote an article titled “12 Shifts to Move from Teacher-Led to Student-Centered Environments.” Yesterday we examined six of those 12 shifts today and assigned a grade to how well the traditional school system is executing these changes. Today, let’s take a look at the remaining six shifts. “Shift #7: From…

  • 12 Shifts, Part 1

    Getting Smart’s columnist Kyle Wagner wrote an article titled “12 Shifts to Move from Teacher-Led to Student-Centered Environments.” Let’s examine 6 of those 12 shifts today and then, just for fun, assign a grade to how well the traditional school system is executing these changes. Wagner writes, … “In my work with aspiring agentic schools…

  • Separating to Learn

    One of the criticisms facing learning pods and microschools is that they allow families to choose segregated environments by which to educate their children. We’ve talked before about the possibility of a group of Nazi families forming their own group of young learners to teach the teachings of Adolph Hitler, along with reading, writing, and…

  • The State of the American High School

    Earlier this month, Tom Vander Ark, Chief Executive Officer at Getting Smart, posted an article titled “The State of the American High School in 2024.” Vander Ark writes, “Over the past 120 days we’ve conducted tours of over 50 high schools in more than 1,000 classrooms across various cities including Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Northern…

  • Learning Coaches and Beavers

    The last topic I thought I would write about for A Better Path to Learning was beavers. That’s right, the cute little animal with buck teeth. But as I read a recent article about our furry friend, and the impact it’s making within the city of London, England, I started to think about a connection…

  • Friday News Roundup

    It’s Friday. Here is your News Update. Retention Is the Missing Ingredient in Special Education Staffing (EducationWeek) Lack of staffing continues to plague America’s traditional K-12 system, especially when it comes to serving special populations. EducationWeek online reported recently that, “Special education staffing strategies often focus on recruiting and training new teachers in the specialty,…

  • More on Microschools

    My friend Nate McClennan, Vice President of Strategy & Innovation at Getting Smart, along with his associate Jordan Luster, published an article earlier this month titled “Small Schools, Big Umbrella: Expanding, Defining and Scaling the Microschool System.” McClennan and Luster write, “Microschools, while not a new concept, are currently garnering increasing attention as an educational…

  • Learning Plans and the Art of Negotiation

    There’s too much time spent discussing the teacher autonomy issue, and not enough time focusing on the importance of student voice moving forward. A recent issue of ASCD’s Educational Leadership focused entirely on the importance of teacher autonomy and why there wasn’t more of it in our K-12 system. Two articles caught my attention. The…

  • Separating to Learn What?

    I don’t spend enough time trying to understand the conservative’s viewpoint these days. Like a lot of liberal-leaning folks, I tend to tune out the right, especially since most of their thinking seems to be skewed by Donald Trump. But I did read with interest an article appearing in The Atlantic  recently. Mike Hixenbaugh, a…