As 2025 comes to a close, let’s look back on the most-read opinion essays and blog posts of 2025. Keep reading until the end for relevant opinion content you may have missed this year.
What were the top 10 opinion essays?
10. ‘She Gave Us a Way In’: A Teacher’s Defense of Lucy Calkins
Every decade, a new savior for literacy emerges: Phonics! Whole language! Balanced reading! Phonics, again! writes Dana Palubiak.
9. We Urgently Need Grading Reform. These 3 Things Stand in the Way
Here’s what fuels the pushback against standards-based grading—and how to overcome it, says Joe Feldman.
8. AI Won’t Replace Teachers—But Teachers Who Use AI Will Change Teaching
Educators can’t wait until they feel comfortable with AI to start engaging with it, argues Ingrid Guerra-López.
7. Student Test Scores Keep Falling. What’s Really to Blame?
There’s strong circumstantial evidence pointing to a particular culprit, says Martin R. West. (Hint: It’s not the pandemic.)
6. High-Quality Research Rarely Informs Classroom Practice. Why?
The connection between education research, policy, and practice is broken. Here’s what it would take to fix it, according to Thomas S. Dee.
5. I Was a Turnaround Principal. Here’s How You Change School Culture
There are three questions that school leaders should ask themselves every day, writes Demetria Haddock.
4. If Literacy Is a Priority, Why Do We Cling to the Wrong Practices?
There have been two huge developments this year related to how we teach reading, writes Mike Schmoker.
3. The Classroom Observation That Made Me Want to Quit Teaching
An administrator said my students were “disengaged” and yet there’s more to it than that, writes 25-year teaching veteran Adam Patric Miller.
2. Kindergartners Are Struggling With Self-Regulation. How Principals Can Respond
School leader Ian Knox recommends three actionable steps.
1. Small-Group Reading Instruction Is Not as Effective as You Think
We’re missing out on a golden opportunity—one that could effectively triple literacy instruction overnight, write Mike Schmoker and Timothy Shanahan.
What were the top 10 opinion blogs?
10. 11 Critical Issues Facing Education at Home and Abroad in 2025
9. 10 Actions Teachers Can Take Now That Trump Is President
8. The 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings Unveiled
7. How Much Autonomy Should Teachers Have Over Instructional Materials?
6. 7 Books That Are Inspiring Teachers Right Now
5. 6 Words of Wisdom From Teachers for Teachers
4. Teachers Are Faced With Constant Challenges. Here’s How to Overcome Them
3. Teachers’ Advice to Their Colleagues—in 7 Words or Less
2. This Is the Most Effective Teaching Strategy I’ve Seen in 23 Years
1. How to Change Teachers’ Minds About Leaving the Classroom
In case you missed it ...
Check out these opinion downloadables and roundups that you may have missed in 2025.
- How to Make Every Student Feel Like a ‘Math Person’
- The Best (and Worst) Teacher Advice for Starting the New School Year
- How Teachers and Principals Are Helping Students Manage Their Emotions
- How Educators Are Thinking About a Second Trump Administration
- How Teachers Can Care for Their Students and Themselves This Year (Downloadable)
- 5 Cost-Free Ways to Make Life Better for Teachers (Downloadable)
- 6 Active Reading Strategies to Engage Students (Downloadable)
- Behavioral Threat Assessment: A Guide for Educators and Leaders (Downloadable)
Feeling inspired? Consider submitting your own opinion essay or writing a Letter to the Editor.
