"The current school landscape sucks," writes educator and hip-hop artist Gabriel "Asheru" Benn. At least that would be the opinion of most teenagers when you ask them. The problem isn't that our schools aren't good or that our teachers aren't knowledgeable or even likeable. Rather, it's the "rote, transactional" ways…

The "elephant in the room" when we talk about preparing critical thinkers for the 21st century, Gallagher believes, is U.S. students' lack of reading proficiency and their general disinclination to read. Gallagher's provocative argument is that a significant factor behind the decline of reading in young people is a set of practices…

Most students in most schools today study subject matter. They and their teachers conceive of the educational task as committing to memory large numbers of facts, formulas, and figures. A far more sophisticated perspective emphasizes teaching disciplines and disciplinary thinking. The goal of this approach is to instill in students the disposition…

Bangladesh, a poor, densely populated country the size of Wisconsin, typically has elementary classes of 50 students learning by call-and-response techniques. Since 1996, 13,000 teachers from 2,900 primary schools have been trained in multiple ways of teaching and learning. Teachers are determined to personalize learning. (MLH)