“If a student got 100% in your class by delegating all his tasks/homework and papers to a virtual assistant and spent under $20 for the entire semester, is that bad? … Because in the real world, you are the most efficient employee of all time.” Will Tjernlund, a former student, posed this question to me…
Read MoreAll articles filed in school reform
Invite us to the party
What are the best new ideas in education? Who has the solutions that will motivate and inspire today’s students? This week, several of my Penn classmates attended the ASU GSV education technology summit in San Diego. According to the summit’s promotional materials, the program included “the top minds in talent and education from around the…
Read MoreThe view from the other side
Last week, I wrote about my eagerness to read my students’ essays on how to improve American K-12 education. Forty essays in, and I’m exhausted but not disappointed. A few of their ideas are thinly researched or ill-conceived, but most put a lot of thought and evidence into their proposals. About half of my students…
Read MoreOne change – What would you do?
If you could make just one change to K-12 education that would have the biggest (and most cost-effective) impact on student learning, what would it be? Would you expand charter schools? Privatize everything? Change teacher education? Make college free? Make pre-school free? Reduce class sizes? Implement merit-based pay? End standardized testing? There are so many…
Read MoreHigh school: What is it good for?
I’m reading an intriguing, short book published in the late ’90s called Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. The author, the late Donald Finkel, argues that teachers can foster better learning without being the center of attention. I like his ideas and plan to try his student-centered methods. But three pages into the book, I read…
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 More
MARTHA RUSH 