Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Gadfly Podcast
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Covid-19
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home Advancing Educational Excellence
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

National Menu

  • Policy
    • High Expectations
    • Quality Choices
    • Personalized Pathways
  • Research
  • Commentary
    • Gadfly Newsletter
    • Flypaper Blog
    • Gadfly Podcast
    • Events
  • COVID-19
  • Scholars Program

About Our Research

We conduct research on the education policies, interventions, supports, and conditions that advance educational excellence for all young Americans. We distill sometimes complex research findings into user-friendly, actionable reports to educate and equip policymakers, practitioners, parents, students, and communities to take action to improve K–12 education.

view

Bridging the Covid Divide: How States Can Measure Student Achievement Growth in the Absence of 2020 Test Scores

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S. last spring, schools nationwide shut their doors and states cancelled annual standardized tests. Now federal and state policymakers are debating whether to cancel testing again in 2021. One factor they should consider is whether a two-year gap in testing will make it impossible to measure student-level achievement growth during this historic period.

1.13.2021
NationalReport
view

Bridging the Covid Divide: How States Can Measure Student Achievement Growth in the Absence of 2020 Test Scores

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S. last spring, schools nationwide shut their doors and states cancelled annual standardized tests. Now federal and state policymakers are debating whether to cancel testing again in 2021. One factor they should consider is whether a two-year gap in testing will make it impossible to measure student-level achievement growth during this historic period.

1.13.2021
NationalReport
view

Teacher Effectiveness and Improvement in Charter and Traditional Public Schools

Study after study has found that new teachers tend to be less effective than educators with more experience. But despite having more junior staff, charter networks (referred to as CMOs) often outperform their district peers. So what’s their secret? To find out, this study explores how teacher effectiveness varies and evolves across traditional and charter public schools, as well as within the sector’s CMOs and standalone schools.

Matthew P. Steinberg 12.14.2020
NationalReport
view

Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.

Adam Tyner, Sarah Kabourek 9.24.2020
NationalReport
view

Schooling Covid-19: Lessons from leading charter networks from their transition to remote learning

Last spring, the Covid-19 pandemic upended routines for over 56 million students and challenged more than 3.7 million teachers in over 130,000 schools nationwide to continue educating kids in an online format. This transition to “virtual learning” was understandably trying for all educators, schools, and districts, but some managed to do far better than others.

Gregg Vanourek 8.25.2020
NationalReport
view

Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck

We spend too much time talking about how much to spend on schools but not enough on how those dollars are spent. Covid-19 has made this situation worse, as schools confront massive, looming budget shortfalls and the challenges of remote learning and public health. That’s on top of familiar issues like pensions, special education, technology, and all the rest. This book offers a workable path through this maze.

Frederick M. Hess, Brandon L. Wright 8.7.2020
NationalBook
view

Moonshot for Education: A Federal Policy Proposal to Spur Effective Research and Development for K-12 Education

In dozens of fields, federally-supported research and development translates into new ideas, technologies, and actions. Why not in education, particularly as the Covid-19 crisis makes it abundantly clear that our educational systems are severely lacking innovative technologies that could have improved the resiliency and flexibility of our classrooms and facilitated a nationwide shift to remote instruction?

Thomas B. Fordham Institute 6.16.2020
NationalPolicy Brief
view

The State of the Sunshine State's Standards: The Florida B.E.S.T. Edition

A decade ago, states across the nation adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in an effort to raise the academic bar for their students. This has provoked countless political battles since then—including an especially intense one in Florida.

Solomon Friedberg, Tim Shanahan, Francis Fennell, Douglas Fisher, Roger Howe 6.9.2020
NationalReport
view

What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings Across States and Metropolitan Areas

Yes, what you make depends on what you know and what credentials you carry. But it also depends on where you live. That's what we find in our new report by John V. Winters. The first-of-its-kind analysis compares mean earnings for full-time workers with different levels of education in all 50 states and D.C., over 100 metro areas, and rural America. Read it to learn more.

John V. Winters, Ph.D. 5.19.2020
NationalReport
view

How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools

Featuring essays by twenty leading conservative thinkers, and anchored in tradition yet looking towards tomorrow, this book should be read by anyone concerned with teaching future generations to preserve the country’s heritage, embody its universal ethic, and pursue its founding ideals.

Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn, Jr. 2.24.2020
NationalBook
view

The Role of Advanced Placement in Bridging Excellence Gaps

This report presents key findings from Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan, and published by Princeton University Press in 2019.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew Scanlan 2.11.2020
NationalPolicy Brief
view

Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement

One indicator of teachers’ expectations is their approach to grading—specifically, whether they subject students to more or less rigorous grading practices. Unfortunately, “grade inflation” is pervasive in U.S. high schools, as evidenced by rising GPAs even as SAT scores and other measures of academic performance have held stable or fallen. The result is that a “good” grade is no longer a clear marker of knowledge and skills. This report examines to what extent teachers’ grading standards affect student success.

Seth Gershenson 2.4.2020
NationalReport
view

The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar: Is What's Online Any Good?

Nearly all teachers today report using the Internet to obtain instructional materials, and many of them do so quite often. And while several organizations now offer impartial reviews of full curriculum products, very little is known about the content and quality of supplemental instructional materials.

Morgan Polikoff, Jennifer Dean 12.10.2019
NationalReport

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Page 6
  • Page 7
  • Page 8
  • Page 9
  • Next page Next ›
  • Last page Last »
Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1016 16th St NW, 8th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]