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”

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”