Do grades actually measure learning, or just how well students follow instructions?

Something I've noticed after a few years of teaching: the kids who ace my class aren't always the ones who get the material. They're just really good at doing exactly what's asked, on time, formatted correctly.

Meanwhile some of my strongest thinkers tank their grade because they turned something in late or skipped a formatting requirement, even though they clearly understood the content better than half the class.

Started separating "did you understand this" from "did you follow the process" in my own grading last semester. Revisions allowed, less weight on deadlines, more weight on whether they could actually explain or apply the concept. Mixed results honestly, some of it just meant more work for me without much payoff.

Anyone else run into this gap between what grades measure and what students actually know? Would be interested to hear if anyone found a system that held up outside a small experiment.

Submitted July 2, 2026 at 09:31AM by WickedKing94 https://ift.tt/eW79thY

Teachers (current or former): What was the biggest contributor to your burnout?

Was it student behavior, unrealistic expectations, lack of administrative support, constant new initiatives, parent interactions, workload, or something else?

I'm researching an upcoming podcast episode about teacher burnout and would love to hear your experiences. I'm especially interested in the moment you realized something had changed—not just what burned you out, but when you knew it.

Submitted July 2, 2026 at 01:56AM by Original-Swing7753 https://ift.tt/VgOYMxG

Has AI dependency actually changed how students approach difficult subjects, or are we overstating it?

There's been a lot of conversation lately about students using AI for homework and assignments, but I keep wondering if we're focusing too much on the tool itself and not enough on what's driving students toward it in the first place.

When I think back to struggling through a tough subject, the temptation was always to find the path of least resistance. Copying from a friend, finding a shortcut online, whatever worked. AI just makes that easier and faster. But the underlying issue, students feeling overwhelmed or disengaged, was always there.

My question for this community is whether teachers and educators are seeing a genuine shift in how students engage with hard material, or whether AI is mostly replacing older shortcuts. Are students actually thinking less critically, or are we in a moral panic similar to when calculators were introduced in math classes?

I'm also curious whether anyone has seen schools or teachers find genuinely creative ways to use AI as part of the learning process rather than just banning it outright. Some subjects seem like they could benefit from it as a thinking partner rather than an answer machine.

Would love to hear perspectives from teachers, students, and parents on what's actually changing in classrooms right now.

Submitted July 1, 2026 at 09:07PM by nighthawk2906 https://ift.tt/Rwq6JuB

Italy’s latest sex education bill conflates “gender propaganda” with sexual abuse prevention

Parents are now required to consent to sex education in Italian schools. The law capitulates to right-wing ideology at the expense of children’s safety.

Read more here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/thefifthtenet/p/italys-latest-sex-education-bill?r=21sfry&utm\_medium=ios

Submitted July 1, 2026 at 12:59PM by sellm3 https://ift.tt/BgbaWUN

Connect Education To Jobs And Create An AI Workforce Transition Plan

An AI workforce transition needs more than retraining. P-TECH shows how education, employers and credentials can connect workers to jobs reshaped by AI.

Submission statement for the link:

Rashid Ferrod Davis, founding principal of P-TECH and a nationally recognized leader in career-connected education, argues that AI requires a workforce transition system that connects education directly to jobs. Drawing on P-TECH’s experience, he contends that sustained partnerships among schools, employers and government can prepare workers for an AI-driven economy while expanding opportunity.

Link to the original post here.

Submitted July 1, 2026 at 05:52AM by BubblyOption7980 https://ift.tt/rBXzPSY

Has anyone else tried using study apps to actually improve exam results?

I have been trying to improve my grades lately, so I started testing different ways to study outside of just reading notes over and over.

One tool I found recently is wesolveapp.com, and honestly it has been pretty useful for me. I can turn my notes into quizzes, listen to podcast style study content on the bus, and go through practice questions with my friends. That part has helped a lot because studying feels less boring and more like we are actually checking what we know.

The website also feels clean and practical, not overloaded with random features. It feels like it was built around how students actually study.

I am not saying it is some magic fix, but I did feel more prepared for my recent exams after using it for a while. A few of my friends tried it too and they liked the quiz part the most.

Do you guys use any apps or websites that genuinely helped you study better? I would like to compare a few more tools, but this one has been one of the better ones I found so far.

Submitted July 1, 2026 at 01:46AM by CompetitiveDaikon211 https://ift.tt/eMn2FrO

Hot take: Principals/admin who allow their schools to run amok should be brought in to explain themselves at town hall meetings

This is my second year in public schools and I am instructional coach, I spent 15 years in the classroom. I have known good leaders, bad leaders, and apathetic leaders. The elements of maintains a strong school is not a mystery, the research out there and demonstrated by many schools. Leadership that ignore teacher requests for support or ignore student behavior until someone gets hurt are allowing their schools to run amok. Schools like this have their state testing get impacted and while a test should not dictate the overall grade of a school, it does anyways. There is a trickle down effect from that.

My school did not meet its goals, so everyone’s evaluation went down even the teachers whose student showed distinguished skills. Great teachers don’t want to be yoked to a school that will continually evaluate them downwards when the rest of the school isn’t measuring up. They end up leaving and making the school that much weaker. Test scores go down and real estate web sites mark the school down because of that. New families don’t intend to move into those neighborhoods because they want a better school. The real estate of those neighborhoods go down and investment into that community goes down with it.

Principals have way more of impact than they realize. They look at a situation and think “oh well, he threw his desk at the teacher, he’s not going to do it again” are ruining communities. They should be brought before a town hall meeting to explain themselves. I don’t care if it deters people from the job, these people operate without accountability and it is not fixing the problem.

Submitted June 30, 2026 at 01:55PM by Efdamus https://ift.tt/9VCqlyJ