On the latest obsession with phonics
Comment on this storyComment The “reading wars” have been around for longer than you might think. In the 1800s, Horace Mann, the “father of public education” who was the first state education secretary in the country (in Massachusetts), advocated that children learn to read whole words and learn to read for meaning before they are More...
AI and news literacy: 3 key takeaways
Comment on this storyComment Here’s the latest installment of a regular feature I’ve been running for several years: lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project (NLP), which aims to teach students More...
What new civics test scores show us: We need to do more
Comment on this storyComment The release this month of standardized test scores showing a drop in students’ knowledge of U.S. history and civics — more for the first than the second — was hardly More...
Florida rejects social studies topics about communism, social justice
Comment on this storyComment Florida initially rejected 81 percent of new K-12 social studies instructional materials publishers submitted to be included on the state’s adoption list for K-12 teachers More...
New look at benefits of quality preschool education
Comment on this storyComment Quality preschool programs have long been connected to positive education and health outcomes for students, and over the past two decades, some state legislatures have taken More...
Banning clothes with political slogans at school
Comment on this storyComment Here’s the latest installment of a regular feature I’ve been running for several years: lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project (NLP), which aims to teach students More...
The impact of Alabama governor’s ouster of education chief
Comment on this storyComment In a new shot in the culture wars, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) recently forced the resignation of Barbara Cooper, the secretary of the state’s Department of Early Childhood More...
Why some marginalized people distrust the news
Comment on this storyComment Here’s the latest installment of a regular feature I’ve been running for several years: lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project (NLP), which aims to teach students More...
Gaslighting Americans about public schools: The truth about ‘A Nation at Risk’
Comment on this storyComment In April 1983, a commission convened by President Ronald Reagan’s education secretary, Terrel H. Bell, released a landmark report about the nation’s public education More...
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet pens letter to local school board
To the Brandywine Public Schools Board of Education: I am a 1974 graduate of Brandywine Public High School. My sister graduated in 1969, and ultimately became a Hospice nurse. My father was Director of Guidance More...