Marc Tucker was president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. For two decades, his research focused on the policies and practices of the countries with the best education systems. This blog is no longer being updated.
School & District Management
Opinion
How to Lose Our Leaders: The New Politics of American Education, Part II
Education governance once existed outside of politics in the U.S.. Now, it's nothing but politics.
School & District Management
Opinion
How to Lose Our Leaders: The New Politics of American Education, Part I
The permanent battle zone of education policy is leading to ever shorter tenures for top education leaders and officials. How did it get to this point?
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Teacher Shortages: Catastrophe or Opportunity?
Marc Tucker explains how current teacher shortages will ultimately be worse than any we have faced before because the causes are structural, not cyclical, and what we can do about it.
Professional Development
Opinion
Organizations in Which Teachers Can Do Their Best Work: Part II
In the second of two pieces on school leadership, Marc Tucker discusses how the world's top performers are creating entire systems of school management and organization that produce world-leading results and what the U.S. can learn from it.
Professional Development
Opinion
Organizations in Which Teachers Can Do Their Best Work: Part I
Marc Tucker discusses how to give school leaders the tools needed to build school organizations that get the best out of their teachers and students.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Dear Luke: A Letter to My Grandson on the Future He Faces
An upcoming trip with his grandson spurs Marc Tucker to consider the challenges young people will confront in the economic landscape that lies ahead.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Accountability 101: For Surgeons and Teachers
Accountability systems for surgeons have created perverse incentives leaving the best doctors increasingly unwilling to take on the toughest medical cases. The parallels to schools and teachers are clear.
Curriculum
Opinion
Is There a Market in the United States for a Strong Instructional Core?
What's preventing U.S. states from investing in high quality instructional systems like the world's top performers? It could come down to dollars and cents.
School & District Management
Opinion
ESEA Reauthorization: A Certain Gnashing of Teeth
Those anxious to reverse the aggressive federal role in education resulting from No Child Left Behind should not rush to simply push the pendulum as hard as possible in the other direction.
Reading & Literacy
Opinion
A Summer Reading List
A reading list to enjoy by the lake, the beach, or wherever you happen to spend the dog days of summer.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Why Some Economies Grow and Others Don't
This week Marc Tucker reviews a new book by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann showing that quality of education has a major impact on a nation's economy
Assessment
Opinion
Civil Rights Advocates vs. Teacher Advocates: A Destructive and Unnecessary Conflict
In this final post in his series on annual accountability testing and students' civil rights, Marc Tucker turns his attention to the way this issue has divided the civil rights community and advocates for teachers and calls it destructive and unnecessary.
Curriculum
Opinion
The 'T-Shaped Curriculum': Liberal Arts, Technical Education, or Both?
In this blog Marc explains why strong technical skills alone are not enough for students who will enter today's rapidly changing workforce. Now, more than ever, students need a solid education in the liberal arts.
Standards & Accountability
Opinion
Civil Rights and Testing: Response to Haycock and Edelman
In this blog, Marc Tucker responds to two critics of his earlier blog on the question of whether annual testing helps or hurts poor and minority children.