Tag: students

A dangerous trend has appeared in America’s largest school districts. Almost all our big districts are increasing spending while their enrollments are declining. Linda Jacobson, a reporter for The 74, wrote an article published today that addresses the trend: “The Philadelphia school district is 18,000 students smaller than it was a decade ago, but you…

Last week the BIG Questions Institute released their bi-weekly update and their message to their readers was spot on: “Here’s a frame for thinking about our approach to education in this fraught moment.” “We’re trying to do the wrong thing righter.” “Let us first say that we really believe that the vast majority of people…

Traditional school districts are notorious for telling their public that consolidation, meaning when schools are closed mainly because of low enrollment and students are moved to another campus, is a way for the school district to save money. But news coming out of Vermont, based on a Yale University study, suggests differently. According to a…

I’ve written about the group Education Reimagined before. ER is a small, but committed, group of folks trying to shift America’s attention from school-centered education to learner-centered education. Probably the best creation ER came up with since its inception was a document titled “Transformational Vision for Education in the United States.” In that publication, ER…

Whether it was covering it in the ABPTL Friday News Roundup, or writing about it in a daily post, we’ve noticed how much talk there is out there about smartphones and whether students should be allowed to access them during school time. Candice L. Odgers, the associate dean for research and a professor of psychological…

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…

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…

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…

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…