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• In the Set of All Factors, Money Wins

  This chart pretty clearly illustrates the correlation between student performance and socio-economic status: I have no interest in defending ineffective teachers, but we also have to talk honestly about what schools can and can’t do to help students. I don’t doubt that the effectiveness of a teacher is the single largest factor in determining a [...]

• The Impermanence of Digital

  Simon Winchester, commenting on the fact that the Oxford English Dictionary won’t be reprinted and future editions will only be available in digital formats: The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed … Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities. In practical and environmental [...]

• It’s Popular because It’s Easy

  Marion Brady presents two theories of learning and suggests that the one currently driving reform is based on the notion that learning is all about transferring information from books and teachers into the empty brains of students. No research says how much of what’s recalled at test time remains permanently in memory, nor to what [...]