Popular online teacher curriculum sites offer time-strapped teachers lesson ideas and supplemental curriculum--but are these high-quality materials? Researchers Amber Northern and Morgan Polikoff examined several hundred of the most downloaded teacher materials for quality, depth of knowledge, and diversity--and the results might surprise you.

Pared down standards, according to ASCD author Mike Schmoker, are the cure to the Common Core. In this provocative article, Schmoker describes how the Common Core literacy standards have largely been a "disaster"--their tangled implementation "an impossible profusion of grade-by-grade minutiae." To "right the ship of…

Despite the best of intentions on the part of overworked and undertrained classroom teachers, instructional planning can too often be described as idiosyncratic, haphazard, and lacking any logically or pedagogically defensible structure. In this article, Tim Westerberg highlights the importance of a unifying planning framework that ensures…

When professional learning is interdependent, a teacher's individual success hinges on the efforts of the entire team. Leadership experts Jenni Donohoo and Ann Mausbach explain why that's a good thing.

Too many rules restrict teenagers' freedoms and development. How can schools straddle the line between providing safety and harmony for students, but also giving them room to make their own mistakes and assert independence? Benson looks at the problem of too many rules, and how it not only harms students, but also interpersonal relationships…

High school science teacher Michelle Vanhala reflects on her (sometimes rocky) path to standards-based grading and a grading system that aligned with her educational philosophy.

For students to feel empowered in their learning, they must understand the language, purpose, and goals of assessment. Dueck argues that students need to understand what they are supposed to be learning and determine whether they actually learned it. Clear objectives and cooperative assessments can help with these objectives.

It's time for educators to ditch deficit-based thinking and instead focus on the strengths of immigrant students, writes Jessica Lander. Here, she provides several concrete strategies teachers and schools can use to honor immigrant students' assets, while still providing rigorous English language instruction. For example, teachers can set high…

In many countries, just as in the United States, the pressure is on to raise the quality of the teaching force; the bar is being raised for what teachers should be able to do. Drawing on her experiences organizing the International Summit on the Teaching Profession and leading delegations of educators to various nations, Stewart describes how some…

When will the new Common Core assessments roll out? What will they look like? How many hours will they take away from instructional time? And most important, what supports can I draw on to help my school with the transition to these new assessments? Assessment expert Nancy Doorey addresses these questions and provides a primer on what to expect…

"Whether your state has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards or will soon revise its own science standards, one thing is clear," writes noted science educator Jeff Marshall. "Change is underway--in what is learned, in how we teach, and in how we assess." This article offers five realizations that point to the potential…

In recent years, American education has enthusiastically adopted the mantra of "college readiness for all." What's not to like about that? Frederick Hess says that although he considers college readiness an admirable goal, he has serious reservations about advocates, funders, and policymakers imposing this norm across all schools. His…

Principals are tasked with being the instructional leaders in their schools--developing teacher's abilities through formal and informal classroom observations and feedback. But how can school districts ensure that principals have the skills they need to fulfill this crucial role? In Clarke County School District in Georgia, central-office leaders…

For many educators, personalization and standardization are considered antithetical, with personalization implying learning that is unique to each student and standardization implying something common to all. We must get past this dichotomy, France argues. Comparing methods in education to those in social media, he says that by standardizing…

The new Next Generation Science Standards make it a priority for schools to focus more on the E in STEM, to help students learn the skills and practices of engineering. Schools that are doing so face a challenge, however: How to design educational experiences in engineering that engage all students--including girls and minorities, who are…