Much of the conventional wisdom in education policy is sacrosanct, circulated so long that it is no longer up for debate. From firm beliefs about school funding to assumptions about what drives unequal educational outcomes, our field is rife with outdated ideas long overdue for updates.
In an effort to equip open-minded education policymakers and practitioners with the latest know-how, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute introduces Think Again, a series of policy briefs that presents the most rigorous research and up-to-date knowledge about critical, and often controversial, topics in education. Our Think Again series (hat tip to Foreign Policy magazine for the name) will re-visit multiple presumably “settled” debates, such as the idea that gifted programs are bad for equity, that charter schools drain funding from district schools, and that elementary schools should prioritize reading comprehension “skills.” We plan to release individual installments periodically over the course of this year and the next.
In the inaugural policy brief in the series, “College Admissions Exams Drive Higher Education Inequities,” Fordham’s national research director Adam Tyner tackles the notion that college admissions exams drive racial and socioeconomic inequities in higher education. This claim is at the heart of successful court cases and has helped to feed the movement against standardized testing. Yet Tyner argues that use of the SAT and ACT for college admissions has minimal implications for equity. That’s because they undergo extensive vetting to remove bias; most colleges do not require high scores for entry in the first place; and the other components of the college application packet exhibit similar racial and socioeconomic gaps, on average, as do the tests.
Update
Think Again: Do charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools?
Opponents of public charter schools frequently contend that they drain resources from traditional public schools—a potentially serious charge. But of course, it makes sense that traditional school districts get less money when they enroll fewer students. So from a policymaking perspective, the real question is whether districts’ financial capacity to meet students’ needs is compromised by charters’ presence. This brief addresses that question and several key subquestions by synthesizing the latest and most rigorous research on charters’ fiscal and academic impacts on district schools.
Think Again: Is education funding in America still unequal?
Historically, many American students from poor families have been trapped in sorely underfunded public schools. The conventional wisdom suggests that school funding remains unequal across low- and high-income schools and that equal funding equates to equitable resources for students. This brief challenges the notion that economically disadvantaged students receive less funding than other students, with implications for equalizing classroom resources and optimizing other social policies.
Think Again: Is grade retention bad for kids?
For many years, the conventional wisdom in the field was that grade retention was a bad idea. A 1997 opinion piece in Education Week titled “Grade retention doesn’t work” reflected the prevailing sentiment in the education community and the available research evidence at that time: retained students performed worse than their promoted peers in the years that followed. This brief challenges that notion, based on more recent studies that do a better job of isolating the causal effect of retention.
