Children construct knowledge; they don't swallow it.

Well spoken, Ms. Engle. Your New York Times op-ed piece hits the nail on the head.

Misuse of statistics

From a recent sales email from yelp.com:

"...on average these customers looked at 3 business pages for every spending decision they made. Said differently, for every 3 of these people who viewed your business page, on average 1 of them would turn into a paying customer."

False; this is a statistical fallacy. Namely: sampling bias. It discards all the people who looked at at least one page, and then didn't buy anything.

The three magic bullets

Everyone wants an educational magic bullet. What worked for a public school in San Jose, and was picked up by the New York Times, turns out to be a pretty good summary of the formula that works like a charm in my experience:

1) High expectations for everyone,
2) Constant assessment, and
3) Family involvement.

Kids have enormous potential, but they need direction, challenge, support, and course-correction.

Bespoke education

The current model of education was pioneered during the Industrial Revolution, when the idea of cranking out many carbon copies of some idealized "good student" was considered a good idea, because it was better than any available alternative.

However, "bespoke" education -- one-on-one individualized work with a tutor, a word that once meant someone who was a master not only of a particular subject, but also of teaching it in a one-on-one format -- is simply better.

This article explains how it's trying to make a comeback online. But this page on my website for students explains why one-on-one in-person work is, and always will be, the gold standard.

Summer homework: is it good or bad?

The debate rages on at the New York Times site.

For me, it's pretty straightforward: two months off in the summer is responsible for the loss of one third of the school year (you miss two months, and you backslide two months' worth in addition), so I think that some academic work over the summer is essential.

However, I am always a stalwart enemy of busywork, and here is no exception. If your child's summer homework is mindless, object immediately. That serves nothing and no one.

Acing the SAT by managing your emotions

Dan Pink's TED talk on motivation explains one of the reasons why SAT takers do poorly: when results really matter, linear thinking gets faster, but creative thinking becomes much harder.

It turns out creative thinking is a huge boon on the SAT, so managing this particular type of performance anxiety is incredibly helpful.

The elite-college admissions pressure keeps rising.

There's a lot of lackluster test prep out there, so on one hand it bums me out that the industry has such a bad rap. On the other hand, our stats and feedback indicate that we are doing something very, very right. Sooner or later we'll eat the competition's lunch. In the meantime, we're not only sending a large handful of kids to great colleges... but we're teaching them to think more effectively, as well. Go us.