The field of mathematics education has engaged in perennial debate about whether transmission-oriented or constructivist approaches to teaching will best help students learn. Yet, both fluency, learned through step-by-step procedural instruction, and the mathematical flexibility that comes from constructivist methods play an important role in…

Writing in the April 2020 issue of Kappan, Tim Shriver and Roger Weissberg address a recent spate of reports and articles that have offered "constructive criticism" of the movement to promote social and emotional learning (SEL) in K-12 education. Despite a number of concerns that have been raised about SEL programs' scope,…

Debates over the efficacy of tenure are longstanding but tenure reform is now more prominent in the public eye given recent high-profile legislative battles in states like Ohio and Wisconsin. This focus on tenure also is a natural outgrowth of the large body of research showing that differences between individual teachers can have profound effects…

The author describes how the interactive study of social media's effect on the Common Core debate was designed and executed. Important findings from the study were: 1) We live in an increasingly interconnected social world. 2) Media has evolved over the last half century from a passive system dominated by a few central opinion makers to the…

Maligned and revered, exemplified or reviled, almost every discussion about charter schools involves a tangle of differing histories, theories, values, and facts. Worse, many times the parties to the discussion aren't even aware they're operating on different planes of discourse. A sort of mental gridlock often results. But by separating…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be coming up for reauthorization amid a number of contentious issues, and debates over these issues are likely to more heated leading up to the 2012 elections. If ESEA is to be renewed, the President must make it a high priority, Republicans will need to work with Democrats, and national education…

Describes email excerpts of teachers' views about racial violence stimulated by the remembrance of a February 2002 jury verdict wherein four white New City police officers were acquitted of the wrongful death of Amadou Diallo, a black African immigrant. The exchanges occurred among members of the Hofstra University New Teachers Network. (PKP)

Authors' largely conciliatory response to the Valencia, Valenzuela, Sloan, and Foley article in this issue of the "Kappan" critical of their December 2000 article in support of the Texas Accountability System. (Contains 14 references.) (PKP)

After considering the arguments of the four respondents to his original essay, Mr. Hess notes that there are a number of points of general agreement between the respondents and himself, but that there also seems to be significant confusion about the purpose of his original essay. In response, he attempts to highlight the points of apparent…

At the same time that NCLB has given states a mandate to staff their classrooms with "highly qualified teachers," the federal government is pushing a dangerously narrow definition of the knowledge and skills that today's teachers need. Over the last decade, policy makers and business leaders have come to realize what parents have always…