In some suburban schools, the curriculum is chock-full of rigorous A.P. courses and the parking lot glitters with pricey SUVs, but one doesn't have to look hard to find students who are starving themselves, cutting themselves, or medicating themselves, as well students who are taking out their frustrations on those who sit lower on the social food chain.

The overwhelming number of teachers ...are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do.

When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.

We learn most readily, most naturally, most effectively, when we start with the big picture - precisely when the basics don't come first.

Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole.

If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.

Very few things are as dangerous as a bunch of incentive-driven individuals trying to play it safe.