In our final episode, we offer parting thoughts to politicians, entrepreneurs, unions, administrators, and teachers. In the end, initiatives are pointless if they don’t improve student outcomes. Our goal shouldn’t be to “fix”education from the outside, but to improve it from the inside by restoring real local accountability.

Guest: James Seaman

This week on the podcast, we discuss how educators can regain the public trust by owning the “noise”around education. We talk about breaking out of the confines of the classroom, building advocates, and improving local accountability as ways to owning the conversation.

Guests: Melissa Brewer and Todd Theboald

Meaningful dialogue about learning doesn’t happen around a single score. This week we explore how real-time tracking of student progress is changing the conversations between teachers, parents, and administrators, and how these informed discussions are impacting student growth.

Trenton and guests delve into the role of assessment in education today. Join us for a discussion on the immorality of high-stakes testing, the type of assessment that really fuels student growth, and the one question that we should be asking about every assessment: Does it directly benefit the student who takes it?

Guests: Robin Daugherty and Cindi Dunford

What do grades actually mean? In a culture where grades can be wildly inflated, it has become a game both for students and teachers rather than a representation of what students actually know and don’t know. Join us for a discussion on how teachers can take back the conversation on grading and criteria.

Guests: James Seaman and Carly Silva

In this episode, Trenton and guests discuss the negative impacts of Big Data on our schools, and discuss the type of data that truly promotes student growth: connected data.

Guests: Steven Giles and Dave Gomes

On this episode, we drill into the topic of accountability. Trenton and guests talk about the accountability problem, the true measures of success, and how educators can regain control of “the noise”.

This week on the podcast, we break down the three things that educators need to make competency-based learning possible: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Join us as we discuss these critical elements and explore how to ignite the same passion for learning in students as educators have for teaching.

This week Trenton and guests delve into why attempts to reform education through market-based strategies so often ineffective. They explore competition, collaboration, and the “public good” and the role they play in driving innovation in our schools.

In this episode, Trenton gives a preview for the second half of the book and the discussions to come. He talks about the core of Reclaiming the Classroom: doing everything possible to help more of our students do better every day. He also discusses the hot-button issue of educator accountability and the questions we should be asking about teacher performance.