In Ed Week, We Talk About What Policymakers Need to Know

Marcus and I were featured prominently in Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo. The question for this blog post was: "What do you think are the most important things that many policymakers don't understand about teachers, students, and schools?"

In our response, we pointed out how important it is for policymakers to learn and apply the scientific understanding that every student who walks through the schoolhouse door has the ability to succeed. We explained that the acceptance of this scientifically based belief would be useful in creating policy to support teachers in the use of practical high-yield strategies such as having high expectations for the success of all students, using formative assessment and reading comprehension programs, and not labeling students as limited in their learning potential.

Marcus and I named five examples of ways that these scientific findings can be useful in practice:

• More reliance on formative assessment to develop reading skills;
• Emphasis on learning pathways in math;
• Reliance on multiple learning strategies;
• More reasons to abandon tracking, and
• Early foreign language instruction

We concluded with a sense of hopefulness of a better country and a better world if policymakers embraced the idea that all students can flourish when conditions are present to achieve academic success.

We invite you to read the entire post at the Education Week blog.