David Shuck

Weak education claims can spread fast. 🌪️📚 Flawed ideas get repeated until they’re treated as fact. I call this The Wildfire Effect. 🔗 Link below #ChalkandTalk #MathEducation #ScienceOfLearning

New EEF study finds lower-attaining students are NOT harmed by ability grouping, but higher-attaining students are held back in mixed classes. Advanced students don't get enough attention in my view. What is the goal of public education? Getting all students to a minimum competency level has to be one goal. But is there not an obligation to provide an environment for students who have surpassed minimum competency to keep moving ahead? educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/high-atta…

I compiled some of the points Sideshow mentioned in the latest Vodfather episode about why EWC/ENC is discriminatory, authoritarian, and very harmful to the scene Pros and fans have the power to put a stop to all this sportswashing nonsense and make VCT as welcoming as possible

“If we want to change classrooms, we have to look upstream.” Joanna Barbousas explains why transforming teacher education is key to educational change. 🎧 Full episode here youtu.be/kjkTqqU4xSE

Not ALL education research is terrible (e.g. a lot of ed psych researchers set up good studies w/ statistical analyses). But a lot of education research is terrible and can often be spotted as such just by exercising critical thinking skills. If the education claim being made is counterintuitive, and supposedly backed by research, that research is likely is bad. I've been reading shoddy education research for absurd claims in math education for ~15 years. Here are a few of the things that are supposedly backed by education "research" that I've looked into and found the research to be terribly flawed or non-existent: ❌standard algorithms are harmful ❌timed tests cause math anxiety ❌taking math makes a teacher worse at teaching math ❌learning math in groups on whiteboards (BTC) improves math learning ❌procedural skill harms understanding ❌inquiry is the best way to teach math The field has a problem. I'm glad reporters are writing about it, but the policymakers (e.g., in schools of education, school districts, government level) need to do something about it because it will keep happening and districts and schools will keep buying products based on fake research claims.

Constructivist math class. youtu.be/JXc1pd-eY5Y?si…

The response to my episode with Montserrat Gomendio has been incredible. She’s highly knowledgeable and clearly lays out what actually works, and why education reform is so hard to get right. Montse’s book is open access and free to read: I highly recommend it for anyone interested in education policy. Link to her book 👉openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647…

This is so powerful.

Thanks to @EudaimonDave for posting my piece on conceptual understanding on the Center for Educational Progress site. educationprogress.org/p/the-conceptu… @rastokke @RCsEvilTwin @tombennett71 @greg_ashman @ToddTruitt76508 @mikesully58 @New_Old_Paul @JonMHenderson1 @robrandel

Listen to Alfie

It seems like a good time to repost my episode with Sarah Powell on the Science of Math. Please give it a listen. We debunked most of the arguments in the latest attack on SOM in this episode. open.spotify.com/episode/02Fh6Y…

The YouCubed people seem unhinged. The science of math people have no math expertise? YouCubed just knows that these myths are actually correct? This is from a mass email from YouCubed.

The multiple strategy approach for teaching math should be abandoned. I have been saying this for years. It doesn't align with common sense or effective practice. This is a good article. edweek.org/teaching-learn…

🚨 Maryland has adopted new math standards that REMOVE the requirement that kids know their times tables from memory, contrary to the US government's last major math education report. This is fundamental knowledge for preparation for Algebra. 1/8 marylandpublicschools.org/stateboard/Doc…

Education studies look quite poor by these standards. I often read complaints on this site, "That's so obvious; why conduct a study at all?" And then findings don't replicate, leading me to believe that maybe the answer to the question wasn't so obvious.

You simply must read @DTWillingham and E.D. Hirsch's excellent case for knowledge-building curriculum. 'We’ve described four types of evidence supporting the idea that content knowledge is a critical contributor to reading comprehension. The fact that there are four different types of evidence has special importance. Researchers value what they call “converging methods”—using different research strategies to address the same question—because every type of study has its flaws. But different methods have different flaws, so if they all point to the same conclusion, we can be more confident that the conclusion is not an artifact of the research design.'

San Francisco axed 8th grade algebra to improve equity, ignoring warnings the policy was driven by ideology, not evidence. The result? Fewer kids in advanced hs math & racial gaps remained. Now they're reversing course. Lowering the bar isn't equity. nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/…

Check out my latest episode with John Sweller. Link below.

Many EdReformers will cheer you, because return-to-accountability is hot right now, but personally, I think faith in this reform is misplaced. The accountability theory of change assumes that schools know what to do to raise outcomes, and if we just put the right carrots or sticks in place, they will do it. I don’t actually believe that’s the case, writ large. The embrace of crummy programs is a symptom of an education ecosystem where educators receive (and often believe) loads of misguided signals about what works to improve outcomes. Put another way: if we implemented new accountability schema today, paranoid schools would be just as (or more) likely to embrace the next faddish tech-enabled solution (“just like iReady, untested for efficacy, but now AI-enabled so it’ll work this time!”) as they would to embrace the curricula in Louisiana and Tennessee. Ask me how I know. So, I think we need to go upstream with accountability, and look at Accountability at the Input Level, or at least better research/insight, so we give better signals to schools (and school boards and parents) about the quality inputs/programs. There can be a role for policy here. I like the idea of a national curriculum database, so we can do research into what schools are using and correlations with performance: karenvaites.org/p/a-call-for-a… More to say on how we can kick accountability upstream, but that’s probably its own post

🇨🇦I'm back in Canada! And my episode with John Sweller was released this morning. Apparently people like it, based on the number of downloads! Don't miss out. Link below 👇(He had lots of positive things to say about the great @greg_ashman too.