A recent study by scholars at the London School of Economics has revived the argument over using mobile technology in schools, and whether students should be allowed to use their own devices. The study found that schools that banned cell phones had a 6% stronger test score improvement than schoolsRead More

The sixth annual Building a Grad Nation report, released last week, showcases an encouraging trend. According to the most recent data, the United States is still on track to achieve a 90% high school graduation rate by 2020. The 2013 graduation rate of 81.4% was a record high. More importantly,Read More

As we’ve discussed at length elsewhere, educational video games have proliferated considerably in the past 20 years. From Quantum Leap to iPad apps, there are games across subject areas for every level. But of course, not all of these games are equally valuable – the preponderance of evidence from currentRead More

How much do you know about your children’s homework? How many assignments do they have tonight? Are they on track with their longer-term projects? If you don’t know, you should look into ways of finding out – it could actually make a difference in your child’s academic performance. A 2014Read More

There are many things that we take for granted when thinking about K-12 education. Children have plenty of homework, and that’s good – it’s a critical learning tool. Right? And class size is a great talking point for selective schools, but  students can learn just as well in a largerRead More

New evidence from a 2014 study by New York University neuroscientists suggests that decisions requiring more time are interpreted by our brains as being overall less confident decisions. The study found that when we take less time to make a decision, our brains consider such decisions as very confident. WhileRead More

As an undergraduate at Rice – an excellent school across the board, but particularly known for its STEM programs – I had many encounters with engineering students who disliked studying the arts. They would tell me they simply didn’t see the point – where were the practical applications? With theRead More

This week, students in classrooms throughout America – including many right here in Houston – will be answering the challenge to complete an “Hour of Code” as part of Computer Science Education Week, an annual event championing computer science in K-12. Given the ascendance of computer science as an industry,Read More

End-of-semester exams are fast approaching. When will your child start studying? At some time during their academic careers, almost all students cram for a test at least once – that is, they wait to study until the day or even the night before, then spend several hours intensely reviewing theRead More

Even at the early childhood and kindergarten level, many parents associate the idea of “a good education” with structured, skills-focused instruction. Kindergarteners must learn their letters, numbers, and colors and build the foundations that they will need for all future schooling; that is the point of kindergarten, is it not?Read More

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and rapidly increasing tuition costs –or at least that’s probably how many college students and their parents feel.  According to long-term data gathered by the College Board Annual Survey of Colleges and the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), college tuition costsRead More