Close the Gap

Ambassador Fujisaki

Last week I had the good fortune to hear Ichiro Fujisaki, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, address the Commonwealth Club of California.

Ambassador Fujisaki was speaking about the green economy, but towards the end of his speech he said something that has direct bearing on schools. After talking about Japan’s geography [...]

Google’s campus in Mountain View, CA

Last Friday I had the opportunity to visit Google’s headquarters and eat lunch at the world-famous Googleplex. It was an amazing experience, but one of the biggest surprises was how underwhelming their campus is.

We’ve all heard about Google’s cushy employee perks, so I was expecting the [...]

David M. Steiner, Dean of Hunter's School of Education, teaching a class in the new program

One of the recurrent themes around the achievement gap has been the failure of ed schools (most of them, at least) to prepare teachers for the rigors of inner-city education. This afternoon I was having a fascinating conversation [...]

The old way of framing it?

In his big education speech last week President Obama didn’t use the term “achievement gap” once. I was a bit surprised by this, since the gap is certainly the biggest domestic issue in education. He did address the issue, explaining that, “a stubborn gap persists between how [...]

Article: Obama Calls for Overhaul of Education System

Well, first of all I think it’s a great thing Obama is addressing this now. I was beginning to get a bit worried that education might take the back burner for a while — I believe our new president is truly committed to it and wants [...]