Displaying 1-30 of 16522 results
Commentary
1.20.2022
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Some Republicans want Miguel Cardona gone. They might come to regret it.

Dale Chu

A letter seeking federal law enforcement intervention into threats aimed at school board members has caused a hullabaloo one year into U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s otherwise unremarkable tenure. Though his role in soliciting the letter is unclear, some Congressional Republicans would love nothing more than to see him become the fall guy. They would do well to consider how their thirst for blood might cut both ways.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

On teaching courage

Jennifer Frey

In recent days, American students have been learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and his leadership in the American civil rights movement.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for starting NAEP in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

Way back in the late 1960s, when federal officials and eminent psychologists were first designing the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they probably never contemplated testing students younger than nine. After all, the technology for mass testing at the time—bubble sheets and No.

Commentary
1.20.2022

What we're reading this week: January 20, 2022

The Education Gadfly

Partisan overtones in the National School Boards Association’s letter to President Biden has led many members to withdraw or refuse to renew their membership.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Now is not the time for OCR to meddle in school disciplinary policy

Michael J. Petrilli

Any day now, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights, is expected to release new guidance for school districts that’ll reinstate an Obama-era policy limiting the use of suspensions and the like in the name of reducing racial disparities in “exclusionary discipline.” It couldn’t come at a worse time.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Mission, vision, and virtue

Jennifer Frey

Education in the classical sense is padeia: a holistic approach to student formation that is geared towards the cultivation of the student’s mind, imagination, perception, and emotions so that they become the type of person who can flourish and thrive inside the school community and well beyond.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop focusing on class size

Daniel Buck

The Nation ran quite a headline last month: “To Reduce Inequality in Our Education System, Reduce Class Sizes.” Surely we might expect substantive evidence to follow such a pronouncement, especially in the midst of a staffing shortage.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Not much to show nationally from a decade of teacher evaluation reforms

Victoria McDougald

Spurred in large part by an infusion of over $4 billion in federal Race to the Top funds, beginning in 2009, nearly all states and the District of Columbia implemented major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Sharpening the picture of early pandemic schooling

Jeff Murray

While it’s no secret that pandemic-induced remote learning was a disaster for almost all students in 2020 and 2021, we must remind ourselves that in-person education models weren't so great

Commentary
1.7.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Why authorizers shouldn’t shy away from helping their charter schools improve

Alex Medler

A decade ago, most charter school authorizers agreed it was not their job to help struggling charter schools. But times have changed, and best practices in charter school authorizing are evolving. Authorizers are exploring ways to support and encourage improvement in the charter schools they oversee, and some charter schools appreciate the change.

Commentary
1.6.2022

Republicans and school boards

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Recent months have brought much hand-wringing and ink spilling over the possibility that hordes of Republicans are gearing up to plunge into local school board elections, this as part of their discovery that public education is rich with political opportunity (cue incoming Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, his campaign advisors, and observant GOP strategists).

Commentary
1.6.2022

Colorado’s curriculum crackdown

Dale Chu

To start the year off on an upbeat note, Colorado’s muscular effort to improve K–3 reading curriculum finally appears to be paying off.

Commentary
1.6.2022

Student retention and third-grade reading: It’s about the adults

Todd Collins

Improving reading results, especially for Black and Hispanic students, is one of our top educational priorities. The numbers are dire, as we see almost half of these youngsters performing “Below Basic” on the fourth grade NAEP—a truly alarming level of performance.

Commentary
1.6.2022

Early childhood education and later educational outcomes

Julia Wolf

Much attention has recently focused on early childhood education (ECE), thanks in part to its inclusion in President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. A new study by Robert C. Carr and colleagues investigated how the longitudinal effects of ECE are mediated by the quality of the K–12 schooling that follows.

Commentary
1.6.2022

What we're reading this week: January 6, 2022

The Education Gadfly

Keller Independent School District, under pressure by the state of Texas, is convening an anonymous committee to ban books they deem questionable.

Commentary
12.23.2021

Fordham’s top 10 articles of 2021

Julia Wolf

The past year has brought hope and progress, but also setbacks and new challenges. At Fordham, we did our best to keep up with all of it, following our well-rehearsed practice of asking tough questions, conducting rigorous research, debating issues rather than propagandizing about them, and proposing workable solutions whenever we could. All of this is evident in Fordham’s 2021 commentary.

Commentary
12.23.2021

The top Education Gadfly Show podcast episodes of 2021

Pedro Enamorado

This year, the Education Gadfly Show podcast covered many hot-button education issues. But our most-listened-to episodes reflect what we already knew: This was a big year for education politics!

Commentary
12.23.2021
Evidence-Based Learning

Counting down the top education studies of 2021

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Subscribers to our podcast, the Education Gadfly Show, are treated weekly to the Research Minute, a segment where I highlight a recent rigorous, useful, or intriguing education-related study (ideally all three).

Commentary
12.23.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

Charter attendance, education outcomes, and civic participation

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

For those of us old enough to remember, the “Rock the Vote” campaign in the 90’s showcased many celebrities—including Madonna in a red bikini and American flag—trying to convince young people to participate in elections.

Commentary
12.23.2021

What we're reading this week: December 23, 2021

The Education Gadfly

The CDC’s case for masking in schools is flawed and doesn’t square with European and global health organizations’ guidance. —The Atlantic Gordon S. Wood, leading scholar of America’s Founding, exposes the 1619 Project’s historical illiteracy.