Most people who know me would probably say I’m a data and accountability advocate. I’m on the board of the Data Quality Campaign and I’ve written extensively (and favorably) about the role of accountability in promoting educational improvement. But I’ve also been critical of accountability, especially so-called public accountability organized around the idea that parents...

Sometimes when I take a Lyft to LAX, the driver will ask what I do. If I tell the truth and say I’m a professor of education, I almost always regret it, because I’ll immediately get a variety of (usually) uninformed and inaccurate ideas about what’s wrong with schools and how to solve the nation’s...

The National Commission on Excellence in Education’s release of a report titled “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 was a pivotal point in the history of American education. The report used dire language, lamenting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very...