The field of education policy is rife with outdated beliefs and baseless assumptions. In an effort to equip open-minded education policymakers and practitioners with the latest know-how, free from bias, we initiated one year ago our series called, Think Again, a set of policy briefs that summarizes the most rigorous research and cogent thinking on an array of critical and often controversial topics.
In the first installment (February 2023), Think Again: Do College Admissions Exams Drive Higher Education Inequities?, Fordham’s Adam Tyner challenges the notion that college admissions exams are at the heart of inequities that we observe in college admissions, higher education attainment, and broader social disparities.
In the second installment of the series (March 2023), Think Again: Do charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools?, Fordham’s David Griffith dissects whether districts’ finances are compromised by the presence of charter schools.
In the third installment (July 2023), Think Again: Is education funding in America still unequal?, Tyner this time challenges the notion that economically disadvantaged students receive less funding than other students.
In installment four (October 2023), Think Again: Is grade retention bad for kids?, RAND’s Umut Özek and Louis T. Mariano challenge the claim that “grade retention doesn’t work” and is too costly for school systems.
In the fifth edition of the series (February 2024), Think Again: Does “equitable” grading benefit students?, Fordham’s Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner scrutinize the assumptions that underpin “equity”-motivated trends in grading reforms.
In our sixth edition of the series (May 2024), Think Again: Should Elementary Schools Teach Reading Comprehension?, Daniel Buck challenges this orthodoxy, arguing that once students have learned to decode, reading with understanding depends more on broad knowledge of the world than generalizable skills.
In our seventh installment of the series (October 2024), Think Again: Are Education Programs for High Achievers Inherently Inequitable?, Fordham's Brandon Wright challenges the notion that marginalized students of high ability are harmed by advanced education, with implications for better screening measures and expansion of programs.
In our latest edition (June 2025), Think Again: Do the returns to teacher experience fizzle out?, Anne Podolsky and Linda Darling-Hammond of the Learning Policy Institute challenge the long-held belief in education reform circles that teachers stop improving after just a few years on the job.
Find each installment of the series below—and stay tuned for additional topics coming your way!
