ACT scores are in steady decline while GPAs slowly but surely rise Schools are lying to parents about student achievement

Beyond stupid, I find these “equity grading” reforms to be downright insulting and offensive. Always pushed in urban schools, they essentially communicate, “well we can’t expect you people to turn things in on time. That’s a white person thing.” Who are the real racists here?!

"There's no one way to teach reading" has to be the most detached rationale. You have a classroom... pick a path for Tier1. The myth of the octopus teacher, mastering and applying dozens of methods, needs to go. Reality: "No 1 way" is often cover for doing what adults prefer/know

Education professors scored no better than physics or business faculty on basic learning science, raising serious questions about teacher preparation programmes. Many of use have been saying this for a long time after discovering cognitive science 5 years into our teaching

When we have 11th graders reading at a 3rd grade level, we've just hopelessly lost the plot in this country.

Working memory is limited. It overloads easily. Direct instruction is designed to manage cognitive load - it is clear, sequenced, and builds understanding step by step. Students can’t juggle too much at once. And they won’t learn much when left to swim in noise and activity.

Complex skills are made up of smaller component skills. Direct instruction builds up to complex skills by teaching the smaller problems inside to mastery. Discovery learning skips the buildup, assuming, somehow, that students can perform the whole without mastering the parts.

We are failing to educate too large a portion of children in America. Who are the responsible parties? Everyone. Administrators, teachers, teacher training programs, politicians, and parents. What is at fault? An incorrect philosophy, we can call it Romanticism, that holds that

Another year, another National Council of Teachers of English Conference Let's look at their workshops First up: a critique of "white supremacist curricula." It's like McCarthyism. Shakespeare? White Supremacist! Phonics? Racist! Reading? How dare you!

Can confirm, taking the pay cut to work in charter and private schools was well worth the pay cut Admin that actually enforce discipline and the ability to focus on academics, not weird identity solipsism and whatever the latest fad is

Please stop. Learning happens through good instruction, knowledgeable teachers, and continuous retrieval and application of the knowledge taught.

When the state lowers the bar and calls it progress, is it any wonder parents don’t trust test scores?

New York: Obfuscating the facts, one student at a time. The contempt for parents is palpable.

England has transformed its schools using ideas from US educators at exactly the same time the US has foundered (& ignored those ideas). Agree w this excellent Nick Gibb piece (& honored to have earned a small mention). fordhaminstitute.org/national/comme…

Of course class size matters. But everyone seems to assume their child will get a strong teacher *and* a small class size, not a struggling or mediocre teacher who is less effective with 16 than the strong one is with 34.

Bronx charter students crushed the state tests—outscoring district peers by 25 points in math and reading. Proof that zip code needn’t dictate destiny.

Just had a student from last year come into my class and recite a bunch of my grammar curriculum he remembered. Take that, people who say grammar can't be taught explicitly.

If all Black students performed at the level of Black Catholic students, the racial achievement gap in reading would be completely eliminated and it would be reduced by two-thirds in math

"But but but schools just need more money!" Countless times, the Department of Education tried just that: Sending schools piles of money. Ya know what happened every time? No academic improvements. Here are four examples🧵

If Catholic school demonstrably raises achievement among minority students, what is the public policy argument--or the equity, social justice, or simple fairness argument--for denying them the ability to pay for it with public dollars via ESA, voucher, etc.?