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 »

Last spring I visited a school in the South Bronx. As I sat in on classes, I began to experience intellectual vertigo; the dizzy, confused and chaotic approach to teaching and learning that the students were exposed to was more Monte Python than John Dewey. One class stands out because failure was not the result of indifference on the part of the teacher; the young teacher was literally trying Continue 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 »