CHEERS:
Add another name to the content-knowledge-lovers club. “It is very, very important that kids learn the skill of sounding things out, of converting letters on the page into spoken words. But it’s also critical that in the early elementary years, we are growing their vocabulary, growing their general knowledge of the world, and growing their familiarity with books and stories. When they read something, they should have good odds of being familiar with most of the words in it and have enough background on the world to figure out the rest.” —Kelsey Piper, The Argument
—
Jason Riley praises New York’s successful charter schools, which—as Chad Aldeman reports—are much more likely to boost the reading achievement of low-income students than their traditional public peers. As Karin Chenoweth discussed on this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, it’s important to identify and learn from success, not just call out where schools are falling short. —The Wall Street Journal
JEERS:
Ed tech’s aggressive marketing leads to profits—it’s a $165 billion dollar industry worldwide—but it has little to no effect on student learning, and it may contribute to the long-term declines in student achievement. —The Economist
—
“According to data released in December from the National Center for Education Statistics, public schools added 118,000 employees last year even as they served 135,000 fewer students. You may have heard this story before. In fact, I wrote a nearly identicalsentence around this time last year. But enrollment keeps falling as staffing levels rise. Since 2018-19, the last year before the pandemic, student enrollment is down 1.4 million (a 2.8 percent decrease) while employment is up by 479,000 (a gain of 7.3 percent).” —Chad Aldeman, The 74
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a twice-weekly free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation.
-
Sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates
-
Curated commentary from across the ed-policy world
-
Lively discussion—including reader reactions and pushback
