A new Fordham Institute publication by Dr.
In 2013, the British government ended the use of “annual progression” pay scales for teachers. These were similar to U.S.-style “step and lane” models but were set at the national level across the pond.
NAGB officials recently reported on U.S. student achievement trends from 2009–19, and what they found was eye-opening. Whereas America’s higher achieving students held steady or even gained ground, our lowest performing kids saw test scores fall, at least in fourth and eighth grades and in reading and math. What might be causing these diverging trends?
Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
Fordham’s newest study finds, among other things, that industry-recognized credentials earned in high school are a net positive for students who earn them but are not game-changers. This raises a lingering question: How else can we transform the high school experience for students so as to significantly boost their wages and career prospects once they are in the workforce? Here are four ideas.
Earlier this month, I argued that “education reform is alive and well, even if the Washington Consensus is dead for now.” What’s more, I wrote that we should stay the course on the current reform strategy:
Does school choice work? That depends on who you talk to and what you mean by “work.” For education researchers and policy wonks, school choice works if it raises math and reading scores for students who take advantage of choice programs or, more broadly, if market competition improves measurable outcomes for all students.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Matt Giani, a professor an
In a recent piece about the state of standards-based reform, Dale Chu weighs the benefits and challenges of a district “relinquishment” versus “instructional coherence” approach to improving student learning.
Since 2013, thirty states have passed legislation or implemented new policies related to the “science of reading.” Their collective effort to change how early reading is taught in America’s classrooms is the focus of an excellent new project by Education Week’s Sarah Schwartz. There are, however, questions about the sustainability of these massive efforts.
Efforts to diversify the roster of students classified as gifted often focus on race and ethnicity.
Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
The latest declaration of education reform’s demise comes from two of Mike’s favorite people: Checker Finn and Rick Hess. But what they actually describe is the end of the bipartisan ed reform coalition—what Mike and Rick used to call the “Washington Consensus.” Even with it gone for now, however, education reform continues apace—and continues to rack up victories for kids. And there are ways to rebuild the coalition.
In the latest issue of National Affairs, Chester Finn and Frederick Hess chronicle the splintering of the school reform movement that lasted from roughly 1983 until Trump’s presidency.
School systems across the country are training teachers in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to tackle issues like social emotional learning, mental health, and behavioral interventions.
The Covid-19 pandemic altered public confidence in education and left lasting shortages in the workforce. Youth unemployment rates are recovering, but young people are still in need of job opportunities that will create lasting wealth and opportunities for further education.
Student demographics in traditional district schools largely reflect patterns of housing availability and affordability within neighborhoods. Much of that is due to strict attendance zoning.
It’s one of those zombie mantras that just won’t die: Letting students cut corners, giving them grades they haven’t earned, and generally lowering the bar is a nice thing to do for vulnerable kids—those living in poverty, often with turbulent home lives or mental health struggles to boot.
Shouldn’t we all seek to individualize instructions to meet each child’s needs? Who could oppose “differentiation”? Well, I do.
School shootings are profoundly tragic—scarring not only the families whose children become victims, but casting a shadow over the lives, mental health, and outcomes of the surviving students. But evidence is also clear that it’s not only horrific mass shootings that can lead a child to miss school. Any feeling of not being safe can prompt children and teenagers to stay home.
Are charter schools helping students succeed?
“New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected,” the Economist tweeted recently to promote a
“Nudges” to induce specific actions take many forms in education.
One of my favorite quotations comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. When Gandalf the wizard recounts the story of the ring and the havoc that it has brought to Middle-earth to the hero Frodo, Frodo says to him, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” To which Gandalf replies, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times.
High-achieving students from low-income backgrounds are half as likely to be placed in a gifted program as their more affluent peers, according to our new study.
Dozens of states and cities provide “college promise” programs.
I read Mike Petrilli’s very interesting article “How to narrow the excellence gap in early elementary school” in Fordham’s June 2 Education Gadfly Weekly.
The relationship between teacher and student has profound effects on learning. A new study explores whether schools can strengthen this relationship over time by keeping students with teachers for more than one year.
This is the first edition of “Advance,” a new Fordham Institute newsletter that will monitor the progress of gifted education. Here, Wright recounts recent developments that reinforce two truths: Gifted education is a clear and substantial good, and it can be much better.
Research has found that high-quality pre-K programs can have positive impacts on children’s learning and development, improving outcomes like literacy and math skills in the short-term and even increasing
