Chemistry for a date. The best pickup line ever. (Reddit)

The higher education Common Core. When Common Core is implemented, will it actually better prepare students for college and careers? Libby Nelson looks at how higher education is preparing for it. (They’re really not, but should, Nelson says.) (Inside Higher Ed)

Closing school for good weather. The principal at Bellingham CContinue Reading »

Last spring I completed a study of American high schools; I looked at five schools serving very different economic and social communities. Here is the headline: If a student is not lucky enough to attend a high school located in an upper-middle or middle-class neighborhood, he or she is likely to get a watered-down, uninspiring, and inadequate set of academic choices—often taught in a hit-or-miContinue Reading »

The United States loses too many students between high school and college. Even students who have successfully completed the college preparatory curriculum still find themselves taking remedial classes for math or English Language Arts upon entering college. About half of those entering community colleges and 20 percent entering four-year universities are channeled into remedial courses becauseContinue Reading »

Election night is over and most pundits agree that federal educational policy is unlikely to change dramatically in the next four years. In Washington, DC, this week at the Excellence in Action National Summit, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan promised to “stay the course,” emphasizing early childhood education, holding teachers to higher standards, recruiting more qualified teachers, improviContinue Reading »

Forty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which are designed to give the United States a uniform metric of academic standards. As we move from No Child Left Behind’s focus on testing and achievement to the CCSS era of rigorous curriculum uniformity, the question arises: Does demanding high standards hurt struggling students?Continue Reading »

On Friday I proposed that state and local policymakers perform a “premortem” before implementing any further plans to provide teachers with professional development (PD) on the Common Core State Standards.  The Common Core presents an unprecedented challenge for PD, and much less ambitious PD efforts have failed more often than not in the past.  States and districts could spend up to $5 billionContinue Reading »

Between the time students start high school and they begin college, they will likely have taken at least two and possibly four high-stakes standardized tests. Which of these will be replaced by the new assessments aligned to the Common Core? Is it:

A. The high school assessment required by NCLB, usually given in 10th or 11th grade; B. Graduation or end-of-courseContinue Reading »

The GE Foundation’s recent Developing Futures in Education conference had no shortage of smart overviews and revealing PowerPoints to inspire and inform the business leaders and educators in attendance. But for this layperson, it was a hands-on workshop on ELA standards that provided the true  “Aha!” moments  about the Common Core State Standards—vivid illustrations of how radically reading andContinue Reading »

Among the more impressive speakers at the GE Foundation’s recent Developing Futures in Education conference was a man so gifted at the lectern that he made some of us wonder why we bother to talk at all, let alone in front of big audiences. He was Wes Moore, the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Other Wes Moore,” and the message he delivered so eloquently was one that characterized tContinue Reading »

First for the good news: Teachers are embracing the Common Core State Standards. According to a recent survey by Michigan State University, 90 percent of teachers had heard of the new standards, 70 percent had read them, and, best of all, 90 percent liked them. “Those are results we wouldn’t have predicted,” the university’s William H. Schmidt told attendees at the GE Foundation’s Developing FuContinue Reading »