It’s too easy to be shocked by the New York Times’ video clip of a Success Academy teacher tearing up a first-grader’s math paper and publicly chastising her, which is making the rounds on social media. Who would think it is OK to humiliate a first-grader? Who would support a school culture where, as one…
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Why teachers don’t behave like entrepreneurs
Should classroom teachers behave more like entrepreneurs? What would that even look like? In a recent article on EdSurge, Senior Editor Mary Jo Madda, a former middle school teacher, argued that we should run our classrooms like “lean startups,” borrowing Eric Ries’s term. She suggests this process: Think of what you want your students to…
Read MoreWhy teenagers are bored by civics
Most American teenagers don’t talk about politics — not at home, not with their friends, not even at school. Nowhere in their daily lives do they engage in substantive discussions about critical issues like immigration reform or trade protection, or even hot button issues like gay rights, gender equality or police brutality. Last week, Prof.…
Read MoreStop waiting for a revolution
Traditional schools will disappear. Knowledge itself will be obsolete. In the revolutionary education system of the future, textbooks and standardized tests will be eliminated, and reasoning skills will triumph as groups of children abandon boring classrooms to connect with peers across the globe and pursue answers together in virtual spaces. Really? Well, that’s what I…
Read MoreCan we use testing to get better?
One of the top experts and longtime proponents of educational testing, Gene Glass, has added his voice to the legions of Americans calling for an end to our national testing obsession. “When measurement became the instrument of accountability, testing companies prospered and schools suffered,” he wrote on his blog, reprinted in the Washington Post. What…
Read MoreIs PD a Mirage?
Billions spent and little to show for it. That’s what TNTP’s new report, The Mirage, concludes about professional development for American teachers. I wonder if any teachers will be surprised.
TNTP (originally The New Teacher Project, founded by Michelle Rhee) studied three large public school districts and one charter network for two years, looking for teachers who improved substantially and trying to identify what worked for them. They concluded that no specific strategies were effective, although teachers were “bombarded” with help.
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MARTHA RUSH 