2023 was often a year of contrasts. We experienced the magic and possibility of artificial intelligence, but began wrestling with its current and future harms. We saw school choice expand across the country, but witnessed growing resistance to it that’s bad for families. And we kept trying to make education more equitable for marginalized groups, but found out how that laudable end can lead to misguided policies in some of America’s biggest cities.
At Fordham we did our best to keep up with this, following our established practice of asking tough questions, conducting rigorous research, debating issues, and proposing workable solutions whenever we could. This is evident our 2023 commentary, which comprised around 400 Flypaper stories, 125 newsletters, and 50 podcasts, spanning every education issue facing the nation. Here are Fordham’s ten most-read posts.
10. How lax grading policies make classrooms chaotic, by Meredith Coffey, May 4
Since the return to in-person learning, schools have seen a surge in all types of student misbehavior, ranging from minor classroom disruptions to serious physical violence. Experts cite a host of causes. As a high school English teacher, however, Coffey found that one thing in particular most impacted her students’ behavior and her ability to manage it: recent slackening of grading policies. Read more.
9. We know student effort matters, so let’s start acting like it, by Eva Moskowitz, March 16
Student effort is the secret sauce at Success Academy charter schools, said their founder and CEO, and they teach and celebrate it religiously. Indeed, after seventeen years of educating tens of thousands of students, careful analysis of homework, classwork, and assessment data has taught the Success Academy team that a large proportion of errors, up to 70 percent, don’t result from not knowing or understanding the content, but from a lack of care and attention to detail. Read more.
8. 9 thoughts on the Advanced Placement takedown in the Times, by Michael J. Petrilli, November 20
Before the Thanksgiving holiday, the New York Times published a hard-hitting 2,300-word expose by Dana Goldstein and colleagues asking “Why is the College Board pushing to expand Advanced Placement?” It's good that journalists are putting the AP program under the microscope. It’s just too bad that the Times didn’t offer a more balanced look. Read more.
7. Worldwide, learning loss and pandemic school closures were directly connected, by Jeff Murray, June 1
A 2023 World Bank working paper found that, whatever the reason for extended school closures during the pandemic, each additional week of shuttered doors worsened learning loss by another 1 percent of a standard deviation. In short, the longer schools stayed closed, the less students learned, no matter what else was done to blunt the losses. Read more.
6. It’s time to dump Reading Recovery, by Aaron Churchill, July 27
This summer, Ohio joined a growing list of states and districts that require schools to use high-quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading. If implemented well, the state will become a model for how leaders across the country can rigorously implement such laws. Part of that will involve eliminating popular but flawed intervention programs for struggling students—including one called Reading Recovery. Read more.
5. How one school district is balancing excellence and equity—and another isn’t, by Brandon L. Wright, February 22
Reducing racial and ethnic gaps in advanced achievement is a major focus of the advanced learning field (a.k.a. “gifted” education), and from these efforts have emerged two common strategies. One, wherein leaders work to enroll more marginalized children in the offerings and improve program quality and breadth, shows real promise. The other, in which school systems eliminate advanced learning opportunities altogether, doesn’t. Read more.
4. Should schools ban cellphones? by Tim Daly, December 8
We should ban students from using their phones during the school day, but that maybe the easy part. Harder is implementing the policy so it works. Schools should invest in secure, signal-blocking phone pouches; establish rules for teachers, not just students; and attach a reasonable but significant penalty for violating school phone rules. Read more.
3. Algebra for none: The effects of San Francisco’s de-tracking reform, by Jeanette Luna, April 13
Starting in 2019, supposedly in the name of equity, San Francisco’s barred all students from taking Algebra until ninth grade. A 2023 study of the policy found—surprise, surprise—that it has a null impact on the advanced course-taking and credit attainment of marginalized students, as well as harmful effects on those who would’ve otherwise taken Algebra earlier. Other evidence also suggests that the policy has exacerbated inequalities. The policy is, in other words, a massive failure. Read more.
2. Soft-on-consequences discipline is terrible for teachers, by Daniel Buck, February 9
While most discussion about student behavior perhaps rightly focuses on its impact on students—the telos of a school is educating children, after all—too often the effects on teachers are overlooked. They’re collateral damage that seldom gets a mention. Read more.
1. At long last, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. gets his due: New research shows big benefits from Core Knowledge, by Robert Pondiscio, April 13
A remarkable long-term study by University of Virginia researchers led by David Grissmer demonstrated unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The paper offered compelling evidence to support what many of us have long believed: Hirsch has been right all along about what it takes to build reading comprehension. Read more.
