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Miguel A. Cardona, the former commissioner of education in Connecticut, became the U.S. Secretary of Education on March 2, 2021, taking office in the midst of an historic pandemic that had profoundly reshaped the nation's schools. In his initial months on the job, Cardona- also a one-time public school teacher and principal--has focused closely on school reopenings and championed equity as a central education priority. In addition, he has been charged with overseeing the unprecedented $130 billion federal investment in K--12 schools provided in the American Rescue Plan. In the interview presented in this article, "Educational Leadership" asked Secretary Cardona about the challenges and opportunities facing schools and educators as they embark on this pivotal school year.

If you can believe the daily flood of mass media stories, journal articles, and white papers, the United States is facing a STEM worker crisis. Business leaders and politicians warn that the nation is falling hopelessly behind in the global economic race because our students are unprepared for and uninterested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. But according to Robert Charette, the claims of a STEM worker shortage do not stand up under close scrutiny. He points out that the United States has gone through five alarm-boom-bust cycles since the end of World War II, each sparked by fear that the nation was falling behind some military or economic competitor and lacked the skilled citizenry to compete successfully. And each time, the crisis turned out to be overstated. The research suggests that the workforce does not have a shortage of STEM workers, writes Charette--in fact, college graduates majoring in STEM fields may have trouble finding a job in their chose field of study. "We would be much better served," he says, "by less hyperventilating about STEM work shortages and more focus on improving overall STEM literacy"--the basic mastery of STEM subjects, blended with the arts and humanities, that would enable our students to function well in an increasingly complex, interconnected, technological world.

Richard DuFour, a leading advocate for creating professional learning communities in schools, shares his insights on why teaching has become an "embattled profession" and the steps teachers and school leaders can take to enhance teachers' practice and their working lives. DuFour explains how recent reforms aimed at educators themselves have disempowered teachers and how teachers are being scapegoated as the reasons U.S. students aren't achieving more--although, by many indicators, schools are getting the best results they ever have. Drawing on his experiences using PLCs to improve schools--as a high school principal, superintendent, and consultant--DuFour describes the best ways to create conditions for true teacher collaboration and leadership, which enhance teachers' professional lives and morale as well as student achievement.

The author of this article writes about how this moment of technological explosion raises a host of important questions for education leaders that speak directly to the way people think about the potentials of technology in school.The author asserts that if technology is seen simply as additive, the questions will be about the technology: Should schools get iPads or laptops? Does every classroom need an interactive whiteboard? What apps are best to engage students? The author posits that, while these are important questions, the real issue is not about the layering expensive technology on top of the traditional curriculum. Instead, it is about addressing the new needs of modern learners in entirely new ways. Once teachers understand that it is about learning, the questions reframe themselves in terms of the ecological shifts that are necessary: What does it mean to be literate in a networked, connected world? What does it mean to be educated? What do students need to know and be able to do to be successful in their futures? Educators must lead inclusive conversations in their communities around such questions to better inform decisions about technology and change. To understand the implications fully, teachers need to start with the questions that focus on the students--and not just on the stuff.

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. They enjoy a huge following of well-wishers and supporters who are optimistic that the standards will boost achievement in U.S. schools. Setting aside the cheerleading and fond hopes, what are the real chances of success? The most reasonable prediction is that the Common Core initiative will have little to no effect on student achievement. Moreover, on the basis of current research, high-quality professional development and "excellent" curricular materials are also unlikely to boost the Common Core standards' slim chances of success. (Contains 1 endnote.)

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards by 46 states and the District of Columbia represents a dramatic departure in U.S. education. In the past, national efforts to improve education have been directed by the federal government and have emphasized resources or organizational structure. In contrast, the Common Core State Standards in math and language arts were developed under the leadership of state governments to improve the "content" of instruction. A tremendous commitment of time, money, and human resources has gone into creating the new standards--and even more will go into implementing them. If the ambitions of the Common Core initiative are realized, for the first time almost every public school student in the United States will be exposed to roughly the same content, especially in grades 1-8. All of which raises the question, Is all this effort worth it? In the case of mathematics, the authors think the answer is yes because the new math standards will address two long-standing problems in U.S. education: the mediocre quality of mathematics learning and unequal opportunity in U.S. schools. In short, the Common Core State Standards have the potential to improve both quality and equality in mathematics education. (Contains 1 endnote.)

As many states and districts rethink teacher supervision and evaluation, the team at the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has analyzed thousands of lesson videotapes and studied the shortcomings of current practices. The tentative conclusion: Teachers should be evaluated on three factors--classroom observations, student achievement gains, and feedback from students. The use of multiple measures is meant to compensate for the imperfections of each individual measure and produce more accurate and helpful evaluations (Kane & Cantrell, 2012). This approach makes sense, but its effectiveness will depend largely on how classroom observations, achievement data, and student feedback are used. As states and districts rethink their teacher evaluation policies, the author urges them to consider the enhancements to classroom observations, the use of achievement data, and student input that he suggests in this article. He believes these practices will give teachers a stronger voice, use principals' time more effectively, and make teacher evaluation a real player in dramatically improving teaching and learning.

Summer school makes an unlikely candidate for a bright spot in education reform during these difficult economic times. It occupies a long-held negative place in U.S. culture, prompting dread in the hearts of many former and current students. Summer school conjures up images of sitting in hot classrooms and receiving remedial instruction while others swim, play, and enjoy the bounties of summer vacation. It's often framed as punishment for poor academic performance, carrying a stigma for students and teachers that can result in low attendance and lackluster outcomes. It's no big surprise, then, that summer school is considered an afterthought by most school leaders and that it's often the first program they cut when school budgets are slashed. Yet despite the seemingly overwhelming obstacles, many urban districts are helping create a new vision of summer school that may transform teaching and learning. This is due in large part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in 2009. This article focuses on the National Summer Learning Association which has been leading the charge for a new vision for summer school since 2008 and has been working closely with a growing network of 16 urban school districts committed to making summer school and summer learning an essential component of their education reform agenda. Through robust partnerships with local nonprofit partners, these districts leverage community resources and better engage students in different types of learning--while also keeping costs down. (Contains 2 endnotes.)

Ironically, at a time when coaching seems to have come into its own as a way to improve teacher practice, school districts across the United States are experiencing funding cuts and eliminating coaching positions. The threats that budget woes pose to established school coaching programs led the authors to ask themselves what practices schools and faculty members might adopt to preserve coaching--as a verb--in situations where coaches can no longer be hired. They explore what school personnel in different roles (former coaches, classroom teachers, teacher leaders, reading specialists, and administrators) can do to provide job-embedded professional development and create networks of teacher learning. For example, teacher leaders can spearhead collaborative analysis of student work and reading specialists can do demonstration lessons in teachers' classrooms to share powerful practices. (Contains 2 endnotes.)

In this commentary, Tucker asserts that countries that perform well on international comparisons of student achievement all take a different approach to ensuring teacher quality than the United States does. These top-performing countries have established high standards for getting into schools of education; they are moving teacher education programs into research universities; they require that teachers be expert in the subjects they teach; they ensure that new teachers have been thoroughly trained in their craft; and they compensate teachers well. The United States does the opposite on almost every point. What's more, the U.S. reform strategy to improve teacher quality--reward the best teachers and get rid of the worst--will only make things worse, says Tucker. He advocates that the United States reverse direction and "embrace the system for improving teacher quality that the top-performing countries embraced years ago."

According to James Harvey, the scale of the 2011 effort to privatize public education through vouchers and charters is "staggering," representing the culmination of a 30-year assault on public service in general and public education in particular. At a time when states are staring into the abyss of bankruptcy, he notes, public funds intended for the common good are being redirected toward the benefit of the middle class and the wealthy. What is lost in this assault is any concept of the public school as a public good. Political leaders might find some justification for their actions if they could point to compelling evidence that vouchers or charters provide superior results. However, as the author points out, the research on the effectiveness of vouchers and charters is "disappointing, ambiguous, and unpersuasive at best."

In a time of resource challenges, many educators see the cost of expanding learning time as a barrier. However, with at least 1,000 schools across the United States currently expanding learning time, data show that schools can implement the approach cost effectively. Expanded learning time schools manage three levers that both build quality programs and minimize costs: teacher schedules, partnerships, and adaptive software. Schools can also access funds through Title 1, the new School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, and various state and federal programs. (Contains 1 endnote.)

As a classroom teacher, Kari Smith realized that traditional objective tests don't always assess what students actually know. But tests are so deeply embedded in the education system that it would be difficult to do away with them entirely. Smith decided to make tests into learning tools. In this article, Smith describes three strategies for helping students learn from tests. First, students can create their own tests, which the teacher uses to build the test that the entire class will take. Students also take tests in small groups, with each student responsible for turning in his or her own test paper. A third option is having students work together to create an answer key for a test they have already taken and then using that key to score their tests. Smith suggests that these strategies will help make tests into more accurate measures of student learning and will enhance student learning.

Classroom assessments fall into three categories--summative, diagnostic, and formative. Summative assessment occurs at the end of a unit or course of study and is therefore an insufficient tool to maximize student learning. Diagnostic and formative assessments, on the other hand, offer descriptive feedback along the way. In light of these categories, authors McTighe and O'Connor consider several assessment and grading practices that can enhance teaching and learning. Teachers should use summative assessments to frame meaningful performance goals, show criteria and models in advance, assess before teaching, offer appropriate choices, provide feedback early and often, encourage self-assessment and goal setting, and allow new evidence of achievement to replace old evidence. (Contains 2 figures.)

Teachers are not adequately engaged in collaborative inquiry where it matters most, in the daily learning-teaching interactions between students and teachers, leading to failure in developing true learning communities by majority of school improvement efforts. Collaborative analysis of student learning (CASL), a particular form of learning community, in which teachers discover the relationship between their instruction and student performance, can be the lifeblood of student improvement.

The large achievement gap between white and minority children cannot be bridged by only improving schools. The factors which need to be looked into are health need of the children, providing stable housing to low-income families and increasing the number of professional caregivers during the out-of- school hours.

Childhood environment and skills are important factors that contribute to the achievement gap of students, but blaming only the preschool years for low achievement will not solve the problem. Ample funding of schools and transformative power of teachers and peers can rid the student of the gap.

An education that is centered on complex thinking and communicating helps graduates to gain good jobs in the U.S. Educators will have to focus on raising students' achievement in math, science, and reading because complex, technical skills are essential for the new century's jobs.

Asserts that educators should reject test-based reform and focus instead on assessment practices that encourage higher level learning. Simply demanding higher scores, even with rewards and sanctions attached, is ineffective. Academic success comes not by teaching to standardized tests but by teaching for deeper, important meaning. (Contains 22 references.) (WFA)

Discusses which kinds of data educators should respect and which they should reject. Asserts that most state accountability tests fail to produce the kinds of data that will improve teaching and learning. Teachers can get the data they need from their own instructionally useful classroom assessments. (WFA)

Relates why educators should embrace tests as tools for transforming teaching and learning. States that rigorous and meaningful testing can help ensure the academic achievement of all students. Further, useful education assessments must make clear what they measure, and they must measure what educators value most. (Contains six references.) (WFA)

Based on data from five educational voucher programs in the United States, argues that voucher schools do not "cream" the best students, do serve special-needs students, can improve academic achievement, do not increase racial segregation, and do not harm public schools. Explains why African Americans support educational vouchers. (Contains 18 references.) (PKP)

Asserts that opponent's predictions that school choice would result in mass exodus of students and a disparate impact on public schools have failed to materialize. Argues that disadvantaged students, especially blacks, in inner-city schools are the principal beneficiaries of voucher programs. (Contains 13 references.) (PKP)

Argues that vouchers do not improve student achievement, hurt public schools, exclude many students, go to students who do not need them, and decrease accountability. Reform efforts should be directed to turning around failing public schools. (Contains 29 references.) (PKP)

According to advocate Robert J. Marzano, standards are the only policy mandate that can significantly improve student achievement. The standards identification process was clumsy, but started a national conversation about desirable subject-area knowledge requirements. Standards content should be cut by two-thirds; teacher-made tests can be reliable. (MLH)

Despite some encouraging signs that education reform efforts are raising achievement in one school here and another there, such piecemeal approaches have not yet yielded positive systemic results. To achieve districtwide improvement, a growing number of school systems are adopting a "portfolio approach" to district governance by replacing the typical central bureaucracy with a school board that manages a diverse portfolio of schools, some run by the school district and others by independent organization. Such an approach promotes innovation while maintaining strict accountability for results. In this article, the authors discuss the potential of the portfolio approach. To ensure that the portfolio approach is effective, the authors suggest that school district leaders must implement the following: (1) Common performance standards and assessments; (2) Commitment to multiple instructional models and academic programs; (3) District systems aligned with equity and flexibility; (4) Significant decision-making authority at the school-level; (5) Strong district capability to intervene in low-performing schools; (6) Flexible and supportive central office services; and (7) Broad-based commitment to leadership development. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Calls for simplicity when presenting data on student achievement. Data should help teachers improve teaching and learning, and focus on specific goals such as determining how many students are succeeding in a subject and, within that subject, what are the areas of strength or weakness. (Contains 22 references.) (WFA)

Academically successful schools need to master student discipline and accept that character development is as important as academic development. Provides recommendations on how schools can do both. (MD)

Outlines the components of direct instruction. Research demonstrates that the types of questions asked, the detailed step-by-step breakdowns, and the extensive practice with examples (illustrated in the three studies discussed) significantly benefit students' comprehension. Includes references and five figures. (MD)

A teacher explores the recent educational reform movement and discusses the studies of schools done by Sociologist Christopher Jencks in the 1970s. An important idea that can be extrapolated from Jencks' studies is that schools should function more like families than factories. This would empower teachers and make schooling more equitable, challenging, and humane. (MD)

Interviews Bob Slavin, a research director at Johns Hopkins Center for Research on Elementary and Middle Schools. Explains Success for All, an early intervention strategy to ensure that students reach third grade with adequate skills. Critical of Madeline Hunter's mastery learning model, Slavin urges practitioners to demand research-based trials of instructional techniques. Includes six references. (MLH)

Poor student achievement in history and geography is mainly a curriculum problem, not an instructional one. The social studies have been moved to the curriculum sidelines to clear the way for intense, test-driven instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics. To educate future citizens, schools must improve social studies instruction and curriculum content. Includes 15 references. (MLH)

Core and other "soft" programs are vulnerable in the current educational and financial climate. Evaluation, communication, and involvement can help save them. (Author/MLF)

In this interview with Executive Editor Ron Brandt, Bloom answers criticisms of mastery learning and explains why he believes it is so important. (Author/JM)

Schools have devised several ways to adapt instruction to a wide variety of student abilities and needs. Judged by criteria for what adaptive education should be, most learning for mastery programs look good. (Author/JM)

Reviews research showing that the social climate of the school and the morale of the staff can have a positive effect on pupil attitudes and learning. Suggestions are made for activities to improve morale. (Author/MLF)

Recommends that schools experiment with a comprehensive formative evaluation system suggested by "A Study of Schooling" by John Goodlad and his associates. The system includes periodic assessment of such things as student achievement, teaching practices, class climates, adult working environments, and parent attitudes. (Author/JM)

Academic press constitutes the schoolwide environmental forces pressing for student achievement, including school policies, practices, expectations, norms, and rewards. This article shows how academic press is created and how high expectations are communicated to students. (Author/JM)

Research indicates that good discipline is a melting pot of positive factors including, among other things, high rates of student success and strong principal leadership. (Author/JM)

Describes the results of a study of three programs successfully teaching basic skills. Characteristics of successful schools include careful alignment of curriculum and instruction and grade-level instructional planning. (Author/JM)

Researcher-reformer Ronald Edmonds believes he knows why some urban schools teach poor children successfully. In this interview Edmonds elaborates on his list of the five characteristics of effective schools. (Author/JM)