The Education Gadfly Show: How assessment data can drive instruction this fall
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Tran Le, Amber Northern, and David Griffith discuss Fordham’s new
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Tran Le, Amber Northern, and David Griffith discuss Fordham’s new
The start of a new school year is always filled with challenges. New teachers, new classes, and new expectations can be difficult for both teachers and students. But what if teachers and students haven’t been in school for six months or more? How can schools try and prepare to get back to a sense of normalcy after all of this?
On this week’s podcast, Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, talks with Mike Petrilli and David Griffith about how well school districts handled remote learning this spring. On the Research Minute, Olivia Piontek joins Mike and David to examine how data on how academic growth affects parents’ perception of school quality.
Denver Public Schools (DPS) has long prided itself on being ahead of the curve when it comes to education reform. It was one of the first major urban districts in the country to negotiate a pay-for-performance system for its teachers in 2005.
This year’s holiday from federally-mandated end-of-year assessments in math and English language arts will undoubtedly embolden test haters to declare once again—and louder than ever—that we never needed those damned exams in the first place and that our schools and students are far better off without them.
With schools shuttered nationwide by the COVID-19 pandemic, states had no choice but to cancel standardized testing for the 2019–20 school year. Although certainly less pressing than many other COVID-related issues, the test stoppage is a long-run concern for states and school districts that monitor student performance using annual tests.
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Robert Pondiscio, and David Griffith debate how much we can expect districts to do du
I proudly serve on the board of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Checker Finn, and David Griffith discuss Mike and Checker’s new edited volume, How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines whether the nationwide rise in high school graduation rates is real, and whether high-stakes school accountability played a role.
This major essay comprises one of the concluding chapters of our new book, "How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools." Levin brilliantly—and soberingly—explains what conservatives have forfeited in the quest for bipartisan education reform. He contends that future efforts by conservatives to revitalize American education must emphasize “the formation of students as human beings and citizens,” including “habituation in virtue, inculcation in tradition, [and] veneration of the high and noble.”
Kids hear all the time that working hard and earning A’s and B’s in school will open opportunities for them later in life. Families rely on those grades to tell them whether their kids are getting what they need out of school to become happy, successful adults.
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.
Fordham’s newest report, "Great Expectations," delves into high school grading practices and the impact they have on student outcomes. Turns out that higher standards benefit students of all types and in all kinds of schools. Whether black, Hispanic, white, male, or female, students learn more when taught by teachers with higher expectations. Unfortunately, American schools are gradually making it harder, not easier, for teachers to keep standards high.
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.
Although most states are only about a year and a half into implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we’re seeing an uptick in conversations about what the next generation of school assessment and accountability systems should look like. Those discussions should begin with what we’ve learned since the passage of ESSA in 2015.
Considerable research suggests that “math skills better predict [individuals’] future earnings and other economic outcomes than other skills learned in high school,” report Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann.
Amid all of the hullabaloo over teacher evaluations, fewer states are now using test scores to assess the quality of their teacher workforce.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 marked a massive federal investment in our schools, with more than $100 billion to shore up school systems in the face of the Great Recession. Along with that largesse came two grant programs meant to encourage reform with all of those resources: Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants (SIGs).
We are endlessly tempted—and strongly encouraged by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher—to infer policy guidance from PISA results. If a country’s score goes up, maybe other countries should emulate its education practices and priorities, as they surely must be what’s causing the improvement.