Opinion & Analysis

A new scholarly report by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute raises the specter of the serious study of U.S. history being left in the dustbin of modern, revisionist American history.

In order to produce more effective principals, universities and school districts should form relationships in which both can serve each other’s needs.

We have known for years that too many children lack competencies fundamental to their school success. This unfortunately happens because of things they don’t learn by age 5—most notably in the areas of spoken language and literacy, self-regulation, social-emotional competence and early math.

When reforms are implemented with little or no input from the community, there is going to be a level of frustration and lack of ownership because there is no buy-in. These conditions do not bode well for the sustainability of any reform, regardless of its intentions.

In April, some 1.2 million New York students took their first Common Core State Standards tests, which are supposed to assess their knowledge and thinking. The first wave of exams was so overwhelming that some parents refused to let their children take the test.

Five years into the second phase of its mission to overhaul America’s public schools, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is moving to work more closely with teachers, generating interest but also wariness because of past hostilities.

In the past decade, the Seattle School Board chose “discovery math” books for the public schools. The chance to correct these mistaken decisions begins next year with new texts for grades K-5.

Independent research in recent months has documented that the nation's wealthiest philanthropic foundations are steering funding away from public school systems, attended by 90 percent of American students, and toward "challengers" to public education, especially charter schools.

For decades, public workers, including teachers, have been promised pensions and health care benefits when they retire. As more baby boomers do so, states are starting to pay out – and coming to grips with the fact that they’ve negotiated themselves into a fiscal crisis.

Across the country, the school year is drawing to a close. Students are taking tests and packing up their backpacks. They are counting down, as they always do, to the last day of class. Though no comparable countdown exists, what is also drawing to a close is the analog era of education.