Timothy Shanahan was surprised to learn that Elaine Garan and Steven Krashen had written yet two more critiques of the National Reading Panel (NRP) report. Each already has more NRP-related publications than any member of the panel, and both have been issuing their complaints over a longer period than the panel worked on the eight studies that…

This article evaluates the "Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction: Reports of the Subgroups" (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The author also examines the following…

The best evidence on effective instruction that we can garner is fragile, often stripped of any external validity. Almost every curriculum scheme works in some sites, and none has ever worked well everywhere. That has been the finding time after time when state and federal educational initiatives have been evaluated. There is a useful role for…

The idea of leaving no child behind may sound like a noble dream. But the federal law intended to fulfill that dream is in Houston's opinion so flawed that it has become a nightmare for educators. Sadly, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is a nightmare in which everyone is naked while being pushed off a cliff because of poor test performance.…

Celebrating its 35th year, the Fayerweather Street School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the few extant schools associated with the "open education" movement of the late Sixties. Not only has the school flourished, but it has managed to stick to its original progressive principles. Fayerweather recently hosted a panel discussion on…

In this article, the author talks about how researchers do not communicate their research very widely and academics aren't aware of most of it. Due to that, little knowledge of the research is passed on to teachers and administrators in public schools. The author is tired of educators' media-related dumbness. He does not understand why every…

The author wonders if the headlines over stories about international comparisons of student achievement are projections of how the participating nations feel about their schools. In this article Gerald Bracey offers examples of headlines and offers his opinions on how they represent specific nations. (Contains 1 note.)

Looking back, the author sees that she misjudged how one becomes an educational expert. She thought it had something to do with thoughtful experience, deep thinking, reflective practice, and the study of theory and research. And maybe there was a time when that was true. But today it seems that the less one has studied education, the less one has…

Students often participate in service learning because it looks good on college applications or is a natural outcome of their church or club activities. If they stumble into careers of service later, it is usually an afterthought, not part of a planned path. Considering the social, environmental, and economic equity issues that today's students…

In Physics "critical mass" refers to the minimum amount of fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction. The adoption of state education policy isn't often equated with this concept, but occasionally solutions and ideas seem to gather around a common problem. If the solution at hand is simple, easily understood, and strengthened with…

Teachers in the author's graduate classes often say how much they would like to have a document camera in their classrooms. Since such a camera typically costs about $800, it is unlikely that many teachers will have their wish come true. In this column the author describes a simple solution: just make your own. He also looks at the issue of…

Many of us have an intuitive understanding of physics that works surprisingly well to guide everyday action, but we would not attempt to send a rocket to the moon with it. Unfortunately, the authors argue, our policy makers are not as cautious when it comes to basing our school accountability system on intuitive test theory. Intuitive physics…

In school textbooks, choice is diminishing. Sameness and slickness challenge 'quality' at all levels. The textbook industry, instead of responding to complaints of scholars and book critics, is unyielding in its profit motive. As a result, educators are almost forced to use basic instructional materials that are shallow and flawed. Publishers are…

As a field, special education presents an excellent case study of the paradox of differentiation and integration, wherein we seek solutions through increased specialization but, in so doing, we redefine a problem in terms of discrete parts at the expense of the whole. As Thomas Skrtic pointed out more than a decade ago, a large and ever-widening…

Prior to the mid-1970s, over one million children with disabilities were excluded from the nation's schools. In 1975, as a result of intense litigation and advocacy, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA, P.L. 94-142), now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), mandating that public schools…