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This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now ...

Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a new study called “The tone of life on social networking sites” where they examine adult meanness and cruelty. This complements their piece on “Teens, kindness, and cruelty on social network sites.”Like teens, most adults find people on social ...

Over the course of the last week, I've had two separate conversations with two different principals about the critically important role that clearly articulated sets of norms play in governing the work of successful learning teams. Both principals are leading their buildings through the transition ...

Sunday's New York Times was a Luddite's dream. Tthe paper's Sunday Review section had three lengthy opinion pieces dedicated to "Life Under Digital Dominance" (their words, not mine), including Evgeny Morozov's lengthy treatise that social media will kill originality because we're all too afraid to ...

Early in May, 16-year-old South Korean Lee Chun-Kil slyly text-messaged his friend during class. He was so skilled at it, he didn't even have to glance down at his cellphone keypad while punching in the following: "Gwanghwamun station. 6:00."The text messages rapidly circulated, spreading the news ...

The future of education for all the different students in democratic societies.The future of education for all the different students in democratic societies.

From the article titled "Head of State" in the print edition (subscription required, although if you are in a school you most likely have access to it through one of your library subscription services) in the November 7th, 2011 issue of magazine: The United States Secretary of State is requiring ...

In 2005, I started asking teenagers about their password habits. My original set of questions focused on teens’ attitudes about giving their password to their parents, but I quickly became enamored with teens’ stories of sharing passwords with friends and significant others. So I was ecstatic when ...

Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, an Israel-based company called Snapkeys invited showgoers into a booth to test its new keyboard technology. Within a few minutes of using it, the company said, people were already getting the hang of Snapkeys, which consolidates the letters of the ...

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational ...

The "great teacher" myth continues. This is the myth that says, "If only we could get rid of the really bad teachers, we'd have better schools." It's particularly pernicious because it sounds so easy, right? Let's just dump the bottom (5% / 10% / 33% - depending on who's writing) and even if we ...

What if school districts and school administrators trusted teachers to let them direct their own PD?What if school districts and school administrators trusted teachers to let them direct their own PD?What if the ideas of personalized learning and students owning their learning was applied to ...

Many of my readers and colleagues know that I have a knack for questioning deeply held assumptions and myths involving education. I also hold positions that others might find extreme. For example, I think curriculum, in all of its forms – especially heavy-handed nonsense like “Common Core – is a ...

On January 10, noted YA author Walter Dean Myers will officially begin his two year term as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and while these kinds of titles usually seem completely useless to me, I'm pretty excited by Myers for one simple reason:His passion is making sure that ...

One of the main reasons I’m at the AMS/MAA Joint Meetings this week is to take an MAA short course on discrete and computational geometry. That course is wrapping up this afternoon, and it’s been a good experience. I came into the course with zero knowledge of computational geometry, a ...

The future of education for all the different students in democratic societies.The future of education for all the different students in democratic societies.

This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now ...

Insomnia can ruin a perfectly good day. I have a sense that today will be such a day.I awoke to a tweet from my friend Will Richardson announcing that he was asked to be in one of those New York Times online “debates” where a handful of people are asked to write short essays without knowing who the ...