We need teacher educators who are hungry to learn about and implement contemporary approaches to teaching and learning in their own classrooms and who are reflective about their work with their students.

I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.

Differentiation is classroom practice that looks eyeball to eyeball with the reality that kids differ, and the most effective teachers do whatever it takes to hook the whole range of kids on learning.

We need teacher educators who regularly spend a great deal of time in classrooms so they have a deep understanding of where they students will teach.

A teacher in a differentiated classroom does not classify herself as someone who ‘already differentiates instruction.’ Rather that teacher is fully aware that every hour of teaching, every day in the classroom can reveal one more way to make the classroom a better match for its learners.

[Students] are exposed to many things the majority of their teachers didn't encounter until much later in their growing up years.

Readiness is a student’s entry point relative to a particular understanding or skill.