By Larry Abramson, NPR, January 3, 2010

America's teachers' colleges are facing some pressure to reinvent themselves.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been leading the assault, with a series of speeches calling for better teacher training. Duncan says it's crucial that education schools revamp their curricula so they can help replace a wave of baby boomers who will soon retire from teaching.

One university is trying to rebuild its teacher-training program from the ground up.

By Laura Pappano, New York Times, December 29, 2009

Some things never change. For example, children still collect soda cans and box tops to buy classroom equipment. But much in K-12 public education is being turned on its head, especially in urban districts where fixing failing schools has become a national focus.

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2009

The Annihilator is a death plunge of a roller coaster that begins by dropping the rider through a wide, fast funnel. It swooshes down a gut-wrenching series of S-curves, flies through a 360-degree loop, slides down a straightaway to another funnel and then -- this is the moment of greatest terror -- free-falls into a basket.

By Russell Poldrack, Huffington Post, December 22, 2009

We've all heard it before: "I am a visual learner," "My child is a verbal learner," and so on. The idea that there are different learning styles, and that education works best when it meshes with an individual's learning style, are deeply embedded in our culture. It's also big business, with several companies selling tests for different learning styles and training for teachers to use them.