Faculty in the Media

"Our major universities operate not as coherent, nonprofit enterprises but as a collection of semi-autonomous units loosely knit together under the banner of a popular brand. We should be unsurprised that amid such profusion, to borrow from Yeats, 'the centre cannot hold.' The result might not be 'mere anarchy,' but it is something less than order."

"This is a decline that started more than a decade ago. And, honestly, the reason why it sort of slipped under the radar screen all this time is because we weren't holding folks accountable for student results. ... The first step is when states and governors and state legislatures say, hey, look ... we're going to be held accountable for what's happening with our students' achievement."

"We’re trying to highlight that something good is happening in some of these places. And hopefully, if we can, rebuild the public sense of agency with respect to public education."

"To give good advice to young people, we have to stop just saying, you know, 'it’ll all work out’ and 'it was okay for me,’ and instead share authentically the messy parts of our own stories."

"It is our responsibility as citizens and teachers to learn how to respect, relate and cooperate across lines of difference of both identity and ideology. The responsibility of citizens in a constitutional democracy is to ensure that pluralism fuels creativity and cultural richness rather than division. For this, the ethic of civic friendship and civil disagreement are required."

"By shifting the way we offer advice to this year’s college grads we can open up a more productive conversation that genuinely helps them navigate a stressful but exciting time and figure out the next steps on their career journey."

“Education research must account for the complexity of community-based educational spaces, and failing to do so neglects the structural forces that shape them, leading to various forms of harm for young people and complicating the lives of youth workers.”

"Good learners ... are motivated by their passion for finding out. They are willing to take risks and work at 'learning edges.' They don’t play it safe; they learn from both their successes and their failures." 

"When typical struggles are normalized, students are more likely to seek support early and persist through challenges. So, how do we start? By making discussions about the expected challenges part of our dialogue about college. And sharing our own struggles too, so that students know that what they are going through is not unique and that they are not doing anything wrong."

"I know from my research it shows that programs are making up for what schools lack. They’re making up for disinvestment in communities and neighborhoods. Those are the things they are making up for, (and) supplementing."

"Vibe coding doesn’t exist in a vacuum — its uptake in schools (and beyond) will be shaped as much by politics, policy, and people as by the technology itself."

"When we invest in this 80 percent of a child’s life, we open up a new horizon of opportunity, and everyone wins. Families get the peace of mind that comes with safe, structured environments. Students get much-needed learning and enrichment while building essential “power skills”—teamwork, problem-solving, and persistence."

"You can get out of a locked-in, polarized structure of debate. ... Within a circle of people who respect standards of evidence and argumentation, who disagrees with me most? You should always be asking that person to your conference. I don’t think we have that habit.” 

"While we do not advocate for public schools to teach religious doctrine or use public funds for religious purposes, partnerships with faith communities can offer untapped resources to enrich student learning opportunities, especially for those in disadvantaged communities."

"The most important thing that states need to realize is that it’s up to them whether their students’ achievement recovers — or continues to fall."

"I see [students not participating] as the most significant challenge facing the NAEP program in the medium term because it threatens our ability to speak with confidence about states’ success in supporting student learning.”

"By naming and validating the real and typical challenges that students are experiencing, we can help them feel less alone."

"Instead of the topic being, ‘We’re going to learn how to divide fractions,’ the topic is something that is actually a real-world question they have that requires them to understand fractions. There’s reason to believe that having them participate in the high-quality production of questions for their peers could be beneficial."

"I am not sure how we argue against work examples as a productive way to learn, [although] there may be better and worse ways to use them in a classroom setting."

“A lot of their fixed costs stay, and yet the enrollment decreases and therefore the aid decreases, and then they're thrown into budget crisis.”

“Audiobooks, particularly when students find them engaging and have opportunities to participate in book discussions, can be a powerful tool for helping developing readers expand not only their background knowledge but language resources essential for making meaning from text.”

“The theory of learning styles has been debunked. ... It’s not the case that someone learns better by listening or by reading. You may have a preference, but learning is sort of the same regardless of the modality. ”

“Young people’s sense of belongingness is such an essential Maslovian need. The pain of social rejection activates the same part of the brain as physical pain. You can’t really learn if you are agitated and feel excluded.” 

"The role of the superintendent has changed. When we do the job well ... we are, in fact, civic leaders. It is a team sport to ensure the health, wellness, and education of our communities and young people."

"This is a wake-up call and a moment for educators to think about how we could restructure education and restructure the classroom and learning so that it’s more relatable for what students want to do in their life."

"Once you start to know what your mind can do that’s so much better than AI, it kind of makes sense that some tasks are well-relegated to AI and other tasks are not. That is going to be a constant challenge to figure out those relationships and lines over time."

"There are real consequences to these low scores and survey findings. Democracy is not self-sustaining. It’s incumbent on us to ensure each new generation can support and strengthen America’s system of governance by understanding how it functions and how to participate in it."

"I hope that there are lots of governors that are looking at Mississippi and saying, 'Look, I want us to be next.'"

"We need to be honest about the full range of Black experiences, which means telling the truth about both the terrible and the beautiful. That honesty can still be hopeful and future-oriented."

"Math is cumulative: If you don’t understand fractions when they’re introduced in third and fourth grade, you’re going to have a lot of trouble when you get to algebra."