By John Thompson. Educators now have to endure another wave of kinder, gentler soundbites by the corporate-funded the “Third Way.” The new spin, called “TeachStrong,” isn’t much different than the old song and dance. Perhaps, this time, corporate reformers will be a little less devoted to test, sort, …
By John Thompson. The good news is that graduation rates are improving across the nation (see this announcement from a few days ago.) The best news is that social science points the way to even greater progress. Ironically, corporate school reformers, who have focused obsessively on improving student …
By John Thompson. Hopefully, a new quasi-experimental study, The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children, by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence Katz will influence the domestic policy of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration. Hopefully, Hillary will understand that this new …
By John Kuhn. With the debate over testing roiling Congress and state capitals nationwide, it is important to recognize the damage done to American pedagogy by high-stakes testing and the deleterious effects of punitive accountability on the students who depend on public schools. In The Big Idea of School …
