School Leader

MontessoriPublic issue on charters and choice

MontessoriPublic is a new print and online publication from the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector, an organization that celebrates and supports public Montessori schools and programs. The latest issue includes a series ...

Why Knowledge Matters, Part II: Strengthening standards with a content-rich curriculum

In my recent review, I argued that Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing our Children From Failed Educational Theories by E.D. Hirsch was perhaps the most important education book of 2016. Indeed, I believe that Hirsch's call for a more rigoro...

If caring is king, content is queen

Last week I was pleased to attend a webinar sponsored by the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence featuring Robert Pondiscio and Lisa Hansel of Knowledge Matters for a discussion of why a well-rounded curriculum is still vitally im...

Yes, kids need to know about the American Revolution

I was at a (very fine) workshop for educators recently with a highly-regarded speaker who confidently declared that, "Kids don't really need to know about the American Revolution!" His point was that we no longer need to teach kids wha...

#AnnualVL2015: Reflections on Day One

I'm delighted to be attending the Annual Visible Learning Conference in San Antonio, Texas, sponsored by Corwin Press, with a contingent of Kentucky educators from the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative (GRREC). (Update: See re...

Classical education, Montessori, and the tension between the "what" and "how" of learning

In recent years my philosophical thinking about education has focused far more on the how of learning than the what. That is, I've become much less concerned about curriculum and far more concerned about pedagogy as I've been convinced ...

Online learning and the future of schooling, Part II

A few weeks back I began a two-part series of posts responding to Francisco Dao's assertion that "online learning is a fantasty." Dao, a tech/innovation guru, argued that online courses lack the structure and interpersonal component to ...

Uniting the adults in schools around a common purpose

I found the short video below via the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector Facebook page. It features Dr. Katherine Merseth of the Harvard Graduate School of Education discussing school improvement and the necessity of "c...

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student's Assessment of School

I started seeing Nikhil Goyal's name about a year ago and immediately took notice. I follow the work of a group called the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO), which advocates root-and-branch transformation of education...