People are right to be wary of educational consulting. A couple years in, and it’s clear you can choose between chasing money or fame or impact. You can choose to stay as close to classrooms as possible, or to distance yourself as much as possible. The incentives are perverse.

Yep. My eyes just close when I see these 'tutoring' discussions. It's like K-3 reading 'intervention'. If you use a Reading Recovery approach, other than for a few kids, all the 'intervention' time and money in the world will not overcome a bad approach.

Everyone is treating this like a big deal. IMO it's not...they will move some boxes (and people) around, and, if a Democrat wins in 2028, it will be swiftly undone. washingtonpost.com/education…

Schools were never built to compete with dopamine on demand. In my latest for @educationgadfly, I look at what happens when classrooms are forced to battle the attention economy—and why it’s a losing fight.

Rates of special education identification have nearly doubled The story in education that no one's talking about h/t @aejochim

Two hallway evacuations a week for a 6-year-old? Principals: stop punishing the whole class—fix the disruption.

The Innovation Illusion: Most of what’s worth knowing in education isn’t new, and most of what’s new isn’t worth knowing.

I’m struck by the sheer rudeness of some high school students towards their hard working and caring teachers, and nobody bats an eye, just accepts that “this is how kids behave” when the school down the road insists on their students being more polite. Something’s not adding up.

"In other words, the way lessons and assessments are written may force students to expend so much energy figuring out what the question is asking that they don’t have enough mental bandwidth left to focus on the math itself." bit.ly/3HIakM9

My Kroger's has roughly 170 options for pasta sauce. 210 sparkling water SKUs. 40 syrups. 100 sizes & brands of bottled water. For what? It's choice overload and the logistics of all this raises prices. Aldi is going to crush it in the US. The concept of smaller footprint, limited selection, simpler display, and mostly private label to achieve a lower price point is spot on. The endless rows and selection used to amaze the Soviets. But it's been taken too far, creating choice paralysis, wasting time, and driving up costs. Just wish Aldi was publicly traded.

Have a friend who’s an expert in the science of learning. Once, we got to talking about math. He said the lowest hanging fruit is to send every kid back to the stage of math they’re not 100% fluent in. For most kids, that’s something like 3rd or 4th grade. Then they should work their way up, step-by-step, and only graduate to the next level once they have mastery of the level before. And now with learning apps, they can speed-run the catch-up process. The research is clear. It’s the social stigma of going back that holds kids back. Kids don’t want to be made-fun of, and no parent of an 8th grader wants to send their kids back to 3rd grade math, no matter how effective it may be. We know how to fix the problem. We’re just afraid of the social repercussions. Many things work like this.

Why are we stuck with such mediocre K-12 education systems in the Western world? Why do they not compete with those of the Far East? Let me explain 🧵

I was in London last year and overheard an American mom instructing her toddler on how to safely cross a street. She began by reminding him to look both ways. Then she pointed to the ground where an arrow aimed right.

US Educators: which school cell phone policies actually work, and which do not? There is v limited data on this question. Please help by taking this five-minute survey on your experiences. phonesinfocus.org/

Admin are saying the hiring pool is "shallow" - teachers without experience or with very peculiar ideas about teaching. However, when I ask principals what they are going to do once folks from said pool are hired, the answer is, essentially, let them figure it out for themselves!