Education Reform – Embrace the Absurd

Education is a Matter of the Heart

On January 31st, we celebrate the feast day of St. John Bosco, whose words, Remember, Education is a Matter of the Heart, are a credo of educators around the world. Don Bosco, as he was known, was a nineteenth century Italian priest who dedicated his life to the education of young people, particularly those living in poverty.Continue reading “Education is a Matter of the Heart”

That Ragged Old Item

Each year they arrive ready to change the game Developers and psychometricians with freshly minted degrees As eager to disrupt as we were eager to please. So, I wasn’t surprised when the bold one exclaimed with disdain, I remember that sandwich cut into six slices! Students deserve better items, no wonder we’re in crisis! IContinue reading “That Ragged Old Item”

Reading Revisited

The Reading Wars are over. While most of us were lost in the chaos of the pandemic, the political circus of the last five years, and the endings and beginnings of real wars around the world, a victor in the long and often bitter Reading Wars emerged cloaked in the mantle of science – theContinue reading “Reading Revisited”

The Most Important Question

In states across the country, lots of questions are being generated as state policymakers and local educators pore over results from the Spring 2022 state tests in English language arts, mathematics, and science. More often than not, however, the single most important question of all is not asked directly. At the district and school level:Continue reading “The Most Important Question”

The Clock is Running

The Clock is Running – what a terrible title and miserable metaphor for a post about the first day of school. But the fact is that as soon as the bell rings, the first roll call is taken, the pledge of allegiance recited, and a brief period of silent meditation completed, the clock is running.Continue reading “The Clock is Running”

MCAS 2001 – Hindsight is 220

Last week, with relatively little fanfare, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to “raise MCAS graduation requirements” beginning with the Class of 2026 (i.e., students beginning high school this fall). Although the approved requirements do have the effect of “raising” the test-based graduation requirements as reported, what they actually do is alignContinue reading “MCAS 2001 – Hindsight is 220”

Public Schools – In Need of Serious Change

Back To School season is here! It’s one of the few special times of the year that marketers cannot overextend, although they have tried. We accept Halloween candy appearing in the aisles as soon as Christmas in July ends and non-stop Christmas movies and music beginning the week before Halloween, but nobody wants to seeContinue reading “Public Schools – In Need of Serious Change”

Bye-bye Miss American Pie

And the three men I admire most The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died Will historians and songwriters look back on July 14, 2022 as the day that standards-based Education Reform died? And is this how it ends, not with the bangContinue reading “Bye-bye Miss American Pie”

10,000 Hours

The so-called “Ten-Thousand Hour Rule” became popularized after the 2008 publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. By popularized, of course, I mean that the discussion of the relationship between success and 10,000 hours of preparation presented by Gladwell was simplified and bastardized so that it could be deliberately misapplied when presented toContinue reading “10,000 Hours”

250,000 Tubas!

Not since 76 trombones led the big parade have a bunch of brass instruments caused this much buzz – or perhaps it would be more fitting to say caused this much oom-pah. For you see, at the core of the Biden-Harris Administration National Effort to Support Student Success is a call to action to provideContinue reading “250,000 Tubas!”