We've made so many changes to our education system just in the past 15 years that it's hard to keep up with all of them. Worse, we've done it with a sense of impatience and misplaced urgency that would make an impulsive teenager blush. What if we just stopped making changes for awhile and spent some time reflecting on how we got here?

The fight over common core is often framed as a fight over the limits of federal power—and an expressed desire to protect "local control" of public schools. But what does local control really mean? And is it actually more democratic?

There is a new sheriff in town in DC: the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress and are promising to scrap the much-hated No Child Left Behind law. This might not be the good idea you think it is.

Have you ever wondered if our national obsession with tests was so extreme that it's actually unhealthy—psychologically as well as physically? I think we may have a substance abuse problem on our hands, and the substance we're abusing is test data. Maybe it's time for an intervention.

The holiday season is upon us. Are you ready to discuss contentious educational issues with your friends and family?

Some schools are experimenting with the idea that we might actually know more about what students learned in school if we gave them performance assessments instead of standardized tests. Not only is this a good idea, but it might actually get us closer to finding out what we hoped to find out by giving standardized tests in the first place.

Congress just passed a huge appropriations bill filled with riders that funded, and de-funded, some significant programs. What if it spent money on education the way it spends money on other things?

If you're already working hard to get your students to ask the right questions, keep it up; if not, it's time to get started.

Education is full of zombie ideas—those bad ideas that just won't die. Don't look now, but here's another one coming back down the pike: segregating classrooms by sex.

You've probably heard the argument that common core will kill creativity—if it doesn't kill everything else first. But is it possible that standards could actually make creative teaching more likely? Can we imagine a world where standards actually make creative teaching possible by validating the work that has to be done to give it life?