In the Classroom

In October 2016, an unusual mural went up on an outside wall at P.S. 11 in Brooklyn, New York. When artist Steve Powers put paint to brick at this neighborhood elementary school, the result was a vivid scene full of letters, color, and pictures, with the word “WRITE” spelled out...

Since 2000, schools across the nation have been seeing results from dedicated efforts to increase the nation’s graduation rate and to reduce the number of students who drop out. Indeed, the national graduation rate rose to almost 75 percent in 2010—the highest point since 1973, according to Education Week’s new...

A quick look at the mission statements for school districts across the United States reveals a common goal: to help all types of students succeed. In Los Angeles, for example, the city’s school district promises that all teachers and staff “believe in the equal worth and dignity of all students...

How long can you stay focused? According to researchers, nobody is immune to the occasional daydream. In fact, many of us know all too well how difficult it can be to rein in our imaginations and pay attention to the task at hand. It may come as a surprise that...

In an article in the February 2017 issue of the Educational Leadership journal, California teacher and author Kelly Gallagher made a straightforward declaration: “Wide swaths of students are not developing their writing skills.” Gallagher, who works with high school students, based this conclusion on workshop sessions he has held with...

In an effort to build students' academic language, educators are incorporating increasingly complex texts into their lesson plans. With College and Career Readiness standards emphasizing the acquisition and use of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, students are encouraged to find the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary by choosing flexibly...

Many students today lack essential literacy skills. Indeed, a panel of education experts gathered by the group All About Adolescent Literacy noted that many students—especially those in high-poverty schools—reach high school with underdeveloped reading skills. These students can often read words, but lack the ability to adequately comprehend more advanced,...

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “cracking the code.” Applied to reading, this means learning to match the various speech sounds of oral language to their corresponding letters in written language. The ability to associate sounds with letters is an essential early phonics skill learned through explicit teaching and practice…...

You can’t go far without stumbling across an article about the importance of having and instilling a growth mindset or its now-frequent companion, grit. Although the idea of a growth mindset—an understanding that effort and persistence count for a lot—was initially applied within education circles, it has since spread into...

When the federal No Child Left Behind law was enacted in 2002, a new era of test-based accountability took root in the nation’s public schools. This meant high school students and students in grades 3 through 8 were tested annually in an effort to ensure they were "proficient" according to...