I struggled in school until I discovered that the library had books on how to select and read textbooks and manuals, how to identify the most important information in those books, and the importance of mastering fundamentals, graduated practice, and rehearsal.

By the time I got out of high school, I had concluded that most teachers were no better than herbalists. It’s not that there was nothing effective in what they did, but that there was a lot of useless and even harmful stuff mixed in.

My son had a better time of it, partly because he had some good teachers and partly, I like to think, that he had me to help him.

I know a lot of teachers and am constantly amazed at just how much they make me think k-12 education is a pseudoscience.

This was such a comprehensive look at the issue.

I was glad it touched on the piece that’s most frustrating to my own work: even when teachers go through rigorous ed prep programs, they often get those research-based practices taught out of them by veteran colleagues once they enter the field. Teacher prep programs get a lot of flak (rightly) but reforming them is only one piece of the puzzle.