The biggest threat to an equitable and prosperous American society is not a particular educational policy, but the gravitational pull of politics, explains Jonathan Collins. Before educational policy can be developed and put into place, the politics that drive education must be acknowledged and addressed. Violence is erupting at school board…

Society largely has accepted a conception of general intelligence that is ill-fitted to the world we live in today. Our standardized tests are based on this conception, as is much of our instruction. The problem is that the kinds of problems we test for and teach to are unlike the complex problems we face in real life. In this article, Robert…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs have become one of the most popular tools that schools use to help students learn to manage their emotions and build better relationships. But Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves argue that these programs are insufficient to help students face today's challenges. It would be far better, they explain, for…

The COVID-19 global pandemic has required everyone to make sense of data about community spread, levels of risk, and vaccine efficacy. Yet research shows that students are underprepared in data literacy. Tanya LaMar and Jo Boaler argue that data science education provides an opportunity to address this problem while providing much needed updates…

In these challenging times, it is essential to activate student voice and prepare them for civic engagement and social action. Social-emotional learning strategies integrated into the social studies curriculum help to accomplish just that. Laura Bond, Maurice Elias, and Samuel Nayman describe the STAT program, which enables students to build both…

In 2020, Rick Hess and Pedro Noguera engaged in a long-running correspondence that tackled many of the biggest questions in education -- including topics like school choice, equity and diversity, testing, privatization, the achievement gap, social and emotional learning, and civics. They sought to unpack their disagreements, better understand one…

Kathryn Welby's case study of schools in regions of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine that have been touched by the opioid crisis yields eye-opening insights into the devastating impact the opioid epidemic has on schools. Students in these communities are experiencing serious trauma because of opioid addiction in their families, and this…

All modern nation-states have periods of difficult history that teachers fail to address or address inadequately. The authors present a framework for defining difficult histories and understanding what makes them difficult. These events 1) are central to a nation's history, 2) contradict accepted histories or values, 3) connect with present…

Although we often look to schools to solve complex social problems, many educators are not ready to address the structural racism behind many contemporary conflicts. Pedro Noguera and Julio Angel Alicia present a brief history of the socioeconomic forces that drove school closures and gentrification in Chicago, the remaking of New Orleans after…

The authors describe the politicization of the process to revise Michigan's social studies standards from 2005 to the present. In 2005, critics objected to the omission of topics they considered important, even though the content expectations document was not intended to be an exhaustive list of material to be covered. The latest, more limited…

The authors describe a promising approach to engaging high school students in intergroup dialogues, relying on "near peers"--in this case, local college students--to facilitate a series of classroom discussions about racial identity, differences, and opportunities to connect. Early results suggest that the approach had significant…

Explains that the social paradigm underlying our dilemmas in education and in the society as a whole is changing, and offers some suggestions for how we should operate schools in a time of transition. (IRT)

Today's children manifest more serious behavior problems than those of the midseventies, resulting from changes in the economy, the racial and ethnic landscape, government policy, and the family. Immense structural changes are necessary in education, health care, government, and political leadership if families and children of the underclass are…