“Like many high-poverty middle schools, Oakland’s Elmhurst Community Prep is trying to reach students who are academically all over the map,” I wrote in an Education Next story. “One-third of the students are working at grade level in reading and math, says Principal Kilian Betlach. Another third are one to two years behind. The remaining third are three or four years behind—or more.” I saw a seventh-grade class where students were using Newsela to read the same news story wr

In We’re Doing It Wrong, David Michael Slater goes after 25 bad education ideas and provides his alternatives. A middle-school English teacher, he’s taught mostly low-income students in Oregon and gifted students in Nevada. He’s also written more than 20 fiction books for children, teens and adults. The book criticizes grouping students by age, rather than performance, then asking teachers to “differentiate.” Instead, he suggests letting students win badges for mastering skil