Teacher Appreciation Month is a time when educators are recognized for their many contributions to students, families and communities. It’s also a time to ask: “Are the teachers all right?” With the recent release of Educators for Excellence’s annual Voices from the Classroom national teacher survey, it’s clear the answer is “not really.” This survey is made for...

The rocket’s engine roars to life, and moments later, it slides up, up and up and away from the launchpad. An embedded video of the flight deck shows a worried, bug-eyed face behind the helmet visor — the astronaut’s pulling some G’s. He’s gone positively green. But wait — because this is a launch in Kerbal Space...

In April 2022, I attended the ASU-GSV Summit, an ed tech conference in San Diego. I’d recently become an official Arizona State University employee, and as I was grabbing coffee, I saw my new boss, university President Michael Crow, speaking on a panel being broadcast on a big screen. At the end of the discussion,...

Three years after COVID struck, high school students’ pathways to postsecondary education remain at risk. Despite the clear importance of higher education for long-term economic stability and success, direct-to-college enrollment rates for high school graduates have dropped across the country, perpetuating inequities for students in poverty and those of color. In response, state and community leaders and...

The early May release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data on student achievement in civics and U.S. history is likely to generate renewed discussion about the urgent need for improved curriculum and instruction in these subjects. Calls for reforms are not new; previous NAEP results that revealed low achievement levels, with disparities across...

The National Commission on Excellence in Education’s release of a report titled “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 was a pivotal point in the history of American education. The report used dire language, lamenting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very...

In a small conference room off the main office of a large high school near Tulsa, Oklahoma, eight students gathered with a language arts teacher and a youth development specialist to identify a problem that they could tackle in their school. Students immediately talked about the mental health crisis among their peers. “When hard things...

The education culture wars on issues like critical race theory and how to teach history create a false narrative and collective illusion on K-12 issues among Americans. The stubborn fact is that voters’ opinions and governors’ statements show broad agreement on a collection of practical education issues that offers a common-sense K-12 governing agenda, according...

The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are devastating: Nearly 60% of teenage girls report feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness. Thirty percent said they seriously considered suicide. Among LGBQ+ youth, that number rises to almost 50%. A critical aspect of addressing this youth mental health crisis is ensuring that young...

For the last six years, I have drawn up a parallel bracket that plots the winners and losers in the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament — aka March Madness — not by how the schools have done on the court, but by how well they have made upward mobility possible for their students. Now, for the first...