Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
In defense of suspensions
A student was arrested after an attempted stabbing at Montgomery Blair High School.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Education is progressive. Schools are conservative.
Editor’s note: This was first published by Newsweek.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Attacking gifted education is bad policy and bad politics
Education for high achievers has come under siege in blue cities and states as the national focus has shifted to racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. But such attacks, even when well-intentioned, are misguided. They target a problem’s symptom rather than its cause, and in doing so, harm students and defy parents.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching gratitude beyond Thanksgiving
Once a year, parents of young children can look forward to their kids coming home from school with turkeys drawn by hand and heartwarming lists of what they are grateful for, with loving parents and helpful teachers usually at the top of the list. This happens just before families pack up and travel to be together and give thanks for all the blessings of the year.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The centrality of instructional materials: My experience with Doug Lemov’s Reading Reconsidered Curriculum
I’m a rather dreadful cook. Nonetheless, in the summer, with easy access to farm-fresh vegetables and the internet’s profusion of recipes, my wan table occasionally turns into something resembling a feast. And this phenomenon works in reverse.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Redesigning early college credit to reach underserved students
In 2012, Tennessee lawmakers created the Statewide Dual-Credit program (SDC) to help more students earn college credit while completing high school.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The state of computer science education
In early November, the Code.org Advocacy Coalition, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance teamed up to release the 2021 State of Computer Science Education.
Commentary
Cheers and Jeers: December 2, 2021
Cheers Now more than ever, we need standardized tests to hold schools accountable. —Conor Williams “Tennessee goes all in on tutoring with $200m statewide program.” —The 74 Jeers
Commentary
What we're reading this week: December 2, 2021
“GOP resistance to preschool plan could imperil key Biden proposal in many states.” —Washington Post Two studies find that California’s education funding formula isn’t meeting its goal of improving achievement for underperforming student groups.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
Education Gadfly Show #797: Why debunked reading practices continue to spread
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Sandi Jacobs, Principal at EdCounsel and former Senior Education Program Spec
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 24, 2021
Though surveys showed that many teachers considered leaving the classroom in recent years, and some predicted nationwide teacher shortages, the data show that teachers are sticking it out. —FiveThirtyEight “Can public money go to religious schools?
Commentary
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Stop pestering education leaders to “follow the evidence.” Instead, host forecasting tournaments.
Education leaders—principals, superintendents, state chiefs, philanthropy heads—make lots of decisions, and we exhort them to “use evidence” when they do. But we should stop doing that for at least four reasons.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Teacher mental health days demonstrate districts’ priorities—and it’s not the students
America’s children are way behind because of the pandemic. And knowing this, parents and guardians have been justifiably expecting schools to rise to the occasion this fall. Instead, districts across the country have been shuttering this month following a wave of unexpected staff shortages. This is unequivocally a bad thing, but one that may have a silver lining: It helps increase momentum for school choice.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What is virtue and why does it matter?
Contemporary education has become too technocratic and divorced from virtue. This is a disservice to students because it robs them of what a classical education provides: the tools students need to succeed, not just academically and professionally, but in the deep and abiding sense of being able to flourish as free and good human beings.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
In almost every state, funding gaps between rich and poor schools have been closed
The conventional wisdom is that American students from poor families are mostly stuck in sorely underfunded public schools while more affluent families have access to well-resourced ones. For decades, this was largely true.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 18, 2021
Education reporting needs to cast off the scarcity mindset and misleading headlines about school finance. —Chad Aldeman Religious groups are lobbying to change Biden’s childcare bill, as it might disqualify faith-based care providers from accessing funds.
Podcast
Governance
Education Gadfly Show #796: What Glenn Youngkin’s election says about education politics today
On this week’s show, Andrew Rotherham, cofounder and partner at Bellwether Education partners, joins Mike
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Communicating the “learning” in social-emotional learning
Editor’s post: This post was originally published on November 8, 2021, by the Learning Policy Institute as part of its “Educating the Whole Child“ blog series.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The fall of the yellow-school-bus system requires swift modernization
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Effectively implementing social-emotional learning means getting the terminology right
Two charter networks, Uplift Education and Distinctive Schools, have provided models for supporting social-emotional learning (SEL) that other schools should emulate.
Commentary
Now it’s the GOP’s turn to mess up the critical race theory issue
Last week’s elections were a turning point in the fraught debate over how race and racism are taught in America’s schools. Democrats failed a major test in contending that CRT is absent from our public schools, rather than listening to parents’ concerns. Yet they may take hope from Republicans already messing up this issue in the form of blatant overreach.
Commentary
A parents’ education bill of rights is a fine thing—within limits
Terry McAuliffe surely blundered when he declared—out of context though it was taken—that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” thereby handing Glenn Youngkin a perfectly-timed campaign issue.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How media coverage of critical race theory misses the point
It is not a controversial statement to say that the debate over critical race theory in schools has shed more heat than light. This is not surprising. When a relatively obscure and arcane academic field suddenly becomes a high-profile political football, hotly debated on cable news shoutfests, it is almost certainly because it has been reduced to bumper-sticker simplicity.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
A descriptive look at the structure of gifted programs in Washington State
Gifted education has been a much-debated issue
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Would eliminating college admissions tests really make education more equitable?
When the University of California began phasing-out college admissions test scores as part of a recent legal settlement, the rationale was “equity.” Lawyers for the students who brought the lawsuit said that “SAT and ACT scores are largely a proxy for a student’s socioeconomic background and race,” rather than measures of ac
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 11, 2021
“Education finance guru Marguerite Roza on how schools can best spend Covid aid.” —Education Week With recent elections elevating the voice of suburban parents and the conversation on critical race theory, what will the future of education p
Podcast
Accountability & Testing
Education Gadfly Show #795: Why we should test in K–2
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Dale Chu, senior visiting fellow at Fordham and independe