Say NO to ROPO (in private education)
Return On Planned Obsolescence (ROPO), I have recently learned, is basically the extra money Apple gets when people buy a new phone while their old still works perfectly fine, but just doesn’t have the newest bells and whistles. It can also refer to extra money netted...
read moreWhat’s wrong with math education
"Math punk" Tom Henderson has written a brilliant essay that I have co-opted and edited here. In a nutshell, what is the problem with math education in the US? It's that students are mostly trying to minimize feeling stupid rather than trying to maximize their ability...
read morePut a little math in your life!
Brian Greene makes the point about science, and it holds just as true for math: "We rob science education of life when we focus solely on results and seek to train students to solve problems and recite facts without a commensurate emphasis on transporting them out...
read moreWhat’s wrong with standardized tests for teachers?
Well, I really mean to answer "what's wrong with using the results of students' standardized tests to evaluate teacher performance?" On its surface, nothing. Indeed, student performance should be the primary metric of teacher quality. When I worked for Bodsat Prep, I...
read moreCheating on the SAT
The thing I can't get out of my head when I read this NYT article on kids paying other kids to take the SAT for them is simply this: All they charged was $3600? Cripes, that's a bargain at ten times the price. Don't get me wrong: you shouldn't cheat, both because it's...
read moreMIT offers best ROI
A recent study claims that an MIT education offers better ROI (Return on Investment) than that of any other undergrad institution. As an alum, I'm excited to hear it. As a professional educator, I'm excited to share it. (And as an ambitious person, I'm wondering what...
read moreA different kind of “underserved”
What if the 32nd individual on the planet to achieve a nuclear-fusion reaction were only 14 years old? It's not science fiction. And the article about it makes the insightful point that the most underserved students in the country are those at the...
read moreThe power of the nudge
My friend and colleague Jai Flicker just posted this lovely essay on the time he knew just what to say to a student to make a big difference. His point was that one's attitude towards work matters a lot. I take away a different point: that there's more to teaching...
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