Cory Turner

Standardized tests. A lot of parents hate them because they think they're too stressful, that their kids take too many, and that a bad test could ruin hopes of Harvard.

Some teachers are dubious because they're often judged, in part, on how well kids do on these tests.

As for ...

What makes a good commencement address great? We read more than 300 speeches and singled out the qualities that made them rise to the top.

American students take an alphabet soup of mandatory and voluntary exams: SAT, PISA, AP. Sure it's a lot, but in places like Japan and England, tests are incredibly high-stress and life-defining.

For years, President Obama has been a vocal booster of early childhood education. In his past two State of the Union addresses, he has called on Congress to help fund preschool for every child in the country.

"Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a ...

The new version of the standardized test for college admissions, set to go into effect in 2016, will do away with obscure vocabulary words and cut multiple choice answer options from five to four.

New Common Core teaching standards mean new standardized exams. NPR's Cory Turner took one himself and reports on what's changed.

The real fear among those who study kids and handwriting is not that our schools will stop teaching cursive; it's that students aren't writing enough.

Almost all the states and Washington, D.C., are grappling with a big challenge as the new school year nears: getting teachers up to speed on the Common Core, a sweeping set of new education standards for English language arts and math.

The Common Core will soon apply to most of ...

"Common Core" is one of the biggest phrases in education today. To many educators and policymakers, it's a big, exciting idea that will ensure that America's students have the tools to succeed after graduation.

But a growing number of conservatives see things differently.

For years, states used their own, state-specific ...

Note: As part of NPR's series on the summer of 1963, reporter Cory Turner headed to Jackson, Miss. to take a look at how folks are teaching the Civil Rights movement to kids who weren't a part of it — and making the lessons stick.

Much has changed in the ...