Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong Answer

By Michelle Rhee

What School Should Be: On Architecture

I want my kids to attend a school where the architecture amplifies student IQ.

There are physical spaces that make you feel smarter. Have you ever read literature at quartersawn oak tables beneath the gothic chandeliers of a vaulted…

What School Should Be: On Learning

I want my kids to attend a school that recognizes its role as mental calisthenics in preparation for a lifetime of learning.

The school must take the long view that the solution is of secondary importance to the solving. In other words…

What School Should Be: On Personalization

I want my kids to attend a school where the principal or headmaster knows every student by name.

Computers cannot make learning personal. In fact, the more advanced the algorithm or AI, the more starkly impersonal learning feels…

What School Should Be: On Teachers

I want my kids to attend a school where the teachers love kids, grasp the content, and bring their “A” game to every class.

Teachers and students are the sine qua non of education. Without school administrators or curriculum publishers or…

What School Should Be: On Curriculum

I want my kids to attend a school where the curriculum is forged in the realities of 21st century learning.

Ours is now a world marked by immediacy, ubiquity, and mobility, by digits, data, and bandwidth. Technology is beginning to
trump…

What School Should Be: On Culture

I want my kids to attend a school where it’s cool to be focused, smart, and kind.

Childhood and adolescence are strewn with land mines of distraction: bullying, hormones, peer pressure, social media, relational conflict, substance abuse, family…