Note: I wrote the following a day or so after I heard of David Berliner’s passing. I have links to some other resources at the end, along with some other reminisences from some of my colleagues at ASU, collected here (with their permission).

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I first encountered David Berliner’s work as a graduate student at UIUC. Though I can’t recall the specific piece I read, his ideas resonated deeply with me. When I discovered he was dean at ASU’s College of Education, I felt drawn there professionally. I even applied for a position, pushing back my acceptance at MSU while hoping for an interview call from ASU. Sadly, all I received was a form letter informing me I hadn’t made the first cut.

It just took me 18 years, but I finally made it to ASU.

After moving here, I met David at some event, retired and emeritus by then, but still intellectually curious and active, and I told him how he had once turned me down, yet here I was at last. We both got a chuckle from that.

David then became a wonderful colleague and friend. Though we never collaborated professionally, we shared many conversations that I cherish to this day. Like all great intellectuals, he was humble and generous. His influence on me and our field remains immense. He brought genuine understanding and empathy for educators while fearlessly calling out misguided ideas. And most important of all was the humane clarity he brought to his work and his writing.

Just to be clear, this post is my personal reflection and doesn’t really get into David’s rich and influential career and contributions. If you want to learn more about David, his work and life, you should visit a wonderful series created and curated by my colleague Audrey Beardsley, called “Inside the Academy of Education.” The videos capture so much about David – his commitment to doing good, his care for teachers and public schools, and his understanding of education’s vital role in democracy. You can explore videos, photographs, and read comments from family and friends as part of the Inside the Academy website devoted to him.

I share below some moments and stories about David that capture aspects of his intellectual approach and personal warmth.

ONE

I was extremely proud when David joined us on Silver Lining for Learning for our 200th episode (Celebrating 200 episodes of SLL) alongside Tom Reeves on July 27, 2024. His comments that day beautifully encapsulated the themes that defined his career. “I decided to go to boring classrooms,” he recounted, “and I just found them so unique, so fascinating that their complexity did not send me away—their complexity made me want to understand teachers, teaching, curriculum, schooling, the whole enterprise.”

Throughout our conversation, David returned repeatedly to this theme of complexity. He described education as a deceptively simple four-variable problem—”somebody teaches something to someone else”—where “the endless variation of each of those four variables has kept all of us busy for our professional lives.” He passionately defended the challenge of educational research, noting that “our research will always suffer from replicability because it’s embedded in social systems” but emphasizing “there’s nothing wrong with our research programs, nothing wrong with our research methods, nothing wrong with us as researchers. We deal with more complexity than the physicist.”

TWO

These ideas about complexity in education are beautifully articulated in David’s seminal article “Educational Research: The Hardest Science of All.” My colleague Danah Henriksen reminded me of this piece after we heard of David’s passing—it’s one that always resonates with her EdD students as they navigate the tensions between theory and the rich complexity of actual practice.

In this deceptively simple yet profound article (much like Lee Shulman’s “Taking Learning Seriously,” which I referenced in the memorial I wrote for Shulman last year), David challenged the prevailing dichotomy between “hard” and “soft” sciences. Drawing on thinkers like Feynman and Medawar, he argued that education isn’t soft science—it’s the “hardest-to-do science of all.” Unlike fields where findings remain stable across contexts and time, educational research must contend with what he called “decade by findings interactions” where “solid scientific findings in one decade end up of little use in another” due to shifting social contexts. It’s precisely this appreciation for complexity that made David’s insights so valuable and enduring.

THREE

Perhaps most moving was his closing statement on our SLL episode, which stands as a fitting reflection of his life’s work:

America has something precious in its public schools, and we’re under attack… I don’t care about getting kids ready for jobs. I care about getting them ready for democracy, for participation as adults in our society, and our public schools rather than our private schools or homeschooling or any of those—I think our public schools are the route for that, and we ought to be concerned as scholars about the public school system with all its warts.

FOUR

This is how I ended SLL, thanking David and Tom. These words feel particularly poignant now:

I also want to thank David and Tom for something specific because what you have done for us as a field, and I think for us as individuals. [You have] modeled for us what a genuine life of the mind, which is deeply engaged with the world can look like.

The field that we work in as we have talked about is incredibly complex. At some level, David, I think I love what you said: it’s a four-variable equation, but it’s amazing how much complexity emerges from just those four variables.

And I think to approach that with a clarity of mind even while respecting the complexity is a very fine line to walk, and to be thoughtful, introspective, productive, and a mentor to the field is a huge, huge contribution that we owe to both of you. So, thank you so much for all that you’ve done and the contributions that we see coming in the future. I know you know this, but I think, we cannot say it enough: how much [your work] means to all of us. Thank you for that.

FIVE

I learned from the ITA interviews that David’s favorite movie was “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” incidentally one of my favorite Peter Weir films, one I watched as a teenager on TV back in India. I always felt that Peter Weir, though he made many excellent films later in his career, never quite matched the haunting quality of that early work.

It strikes me now that the reason this film resonates is because the mystery at its heart is never solved. There are no neat twists or revelations, no deus ex machina to provide closure. The film embraces ambiguity and leaves questions unanswered, much like the educational contexts David studied throughout his career. Perhaps this shared appreciation for embracing rather than simplifying complexity created another connection between us without my even realizing it.

SIX

I also learned from the ITA videos that that David’s favorite word was “giggle.”

I love to make little children giggle and I’m good at it,” he said with characteristic warmth. “That’s what my kids remember,” he said making some silly quacking noises. “When you see teachers giggle with their kids,” he continued, “there’s something about not just laughter but giggling.”

This seemingly small detail captures something profound about David’s approach. In a field increasingly dominated by metrics and standardized assessments, he celebrated those revelatory moments when a teacher shared a giggle with students. David understood that such instances of human connection cut through the complexity of education research, grounding our work in what truly matters. He embraced education’s complexity while maintaining the clarity to articulate its essence, the humanity at its core.

CLOSING

Looking back now, I see how perfectly these two small details (his love for a film that embraces mystery without resolution, and his fondness for “giggle,” a word that captures the joy of human connection) embody what made David special. He found joy in the very messiness that frustrates so many researchers. And in doing so, he showed us all a way forward.

What better final note to remember this brilliant scholar and human by than the sound of a shared giggle in a classroom, reminding us why education truly matters.

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Some thoughts on David Berliner from some of my colleagues at ASU, archived here with their permission.

AUDREY BEARDSLEY

David Berliner was my “academic father.” He was my mentor through my PhD work and remained in this role in almost every way since, both personally and professionally. He was the most pragmatic and public-facing of scholars, never letting political ideologies and narratives outweigh research evidence. Together, we took on high-stakes testing and educational policies based on tests and similar “objective” measurement systems. Indeed, his inspirations profoundly shaped my own career. David was brilliant and fearless, yet also full of humor; he was quick with a good joke, delighted by delicious food, especially at certain New York delicatessens, and he was always up for a glass of great wine. He never failed to tell me how proud he was of me. But the truth is, I was prouder to be his mentee, always in hopes that I might carry forward even a fraction of his legacy.

GUSTAVO FISCHMAN

It’s hard to put into words the depth of gratitude I feel for David Berliner and the profound impact he had on my life. A long time ago, in 2000, he hired me, despite knowing that the committee had reservations (including my hair being too long, my Argentinean accent being too thick, and my publication record in Bilingual Science Education being too short). He supported me when I was mourning and celebrated my minor achievements. He honestly gave and took critical comments on shared projects. He made me laugh and think with small and big stories. His friendship, wit, and insight enriched so many moments of my life, not just as a researcher and educator, but also as a husband, son, and friend.

While his loss is painful, I find comfort in the countless ways he contributed not only to making our lives better but also significantly contributed to our college and to the broad field of education. In the midst of this grief, a friend recently shared a Buddhist teaching that has stayed with me: “I’m of the nature to grow sick. I’m of the nature to grow old. I’m of the nature to lose the people I love. I’m of the nature to die. How then shall I live?”

David had a simple, honest answer to that maddeningly complex, yet straightforward question. He shared it often with my wife and me—usually while telling a clever story, railing against those who disparage good teachers, enjoying a good meal, and sipping a glass of wine. His answer was always the same: “Life is good.”

I believe the best way to honor his memory is to keep embracing and celebrating life—sharing stories with friends and colleagues, savoring food and wine, resisting foolish ideas, and cherishing the joy in everyday moments. Those three words, spoken with warmth and conviction, remain his lasting gift: a profound truth and a comforting presence that will endure.

JEANNE POWERS

I first encountered David’s work as a graduate student. I was teaching a course in the sociology of education at UCSD and used The Manufactured Crisis as a counterpoint to the arguments about education reform generated in the wake of A Nation at Risk. I was lucky enough to interview at ASU as a terribly green graduate student while David was Dean of the College of Education. He hired me on the advice of Ursula Casanova, his wife and partner in life and work. I am eternally grateful to both David and Ursula for my career here at ASU. 

Since then, David became more than a colleague – he was a cherished friend. I was fortunate enough to see the last talk he gave at the Horace Mann League conference in February 2025. David’s talk touched upon the issues that animated his recent work – the myths and lies that are helping to erode the foundations of public education, the crucial role public education plays in a strong and vibrant democracy, and how we need social policies that address the ways that poverty constrains many students’ life chances. We have lost a vital voice in the field, and I hope to honor his legacy by serving as a critical friend of public education with my own work.

Some links

Thanks to Sherman Dorn for curating some of these links:

• David C. Berliner (from the MLFC website)
• David Berliner in Inside the Academy of Education
• National Education Policy Center in Memorium
• Google Scholar
• Official ASU page
• Diane Ravich’s post on David
• Wikipedia (definitely in need of an overhaul)