Gifted-student screenings often miss poor students who should qualify
Bich Thi Ngoc Tran, Jonathan Wai, Sarah McKenzieHigh-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.
Can we revive standards-based reform?
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Few people have done more to boost academic standards in U.S. schools than Michael Cohen and Laura Slover, coauthors of a new paper offering a bright vision for revitalizing them. But there are reasons to doubt the feasibility of its proposals.
Relinquishment or instructional coherence: What’s the right goal for districts?
Dale ChuThe “tripod” of standards, testing, and accountability has taken a real beating in recent years, following decades in which it was accepted dogma within reform circles.
Stop neglecting gifted students’ social and emotional needs
Susan Miller, Tom CoyneBack in February, Bloomberg’s Adrian Wooldridge published a column claiming that “America is facing a great talent recession.” He noted that, “today, demand for top talent in the corporate world and elsewhere is exploding just at a time when the supply is t
Beyond free tuition: How college promise scholarships are perceived by awardees
Jeff MurrayDozens of states and cities provide “college promise” programs.
The Education Gadfly Show #828: Arizona’s expanded ESA: The big enchilada of school choice
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Matt Beienburg, Director of Education Policy
The swirling private-school universe
Chester E. Finn, Jr.The universe of private elementary-secondary schooling in America today is diverse and confusing, with innumerable twists and turns in efforts to use public funds to help families access schools that suit them—including private schools of all colors and stripes. But the virtue of these institutions is that they’re different, which also means very different from each other. Which complicates the quest to deploy public dollars to assist families to choose them.
Does keeping students with the same teacher for multiple years boost outcomes?
Nathaniel GrossmanThe 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.
Hope and progress for gifted education
Brandon L. WrightThis 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.
The Education Gadfly Show #827: The debate over “no zeroes” grading policies
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, a teacher and a Fordham senior visiting fellow, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss “
Building better evidence on pre-K by strengthening assessments of children’s skills
Meghan McCormickResearch 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
Exit interview: Carey Wright, Mississippi’s State Superintendent of Education
Robert PondiscioOne of the most unlikely education stories of the last decade has been the rise of Mississippi as a star of NAEP and a science of reading proof point. When looking for models to follow, researchers and policy wonks usually point to places like Shanghai and Finland, even Massachusetts. But Mississippi? Who saw that coming?
ESSER is fueling one-size-fits-all strategies. Let’s use data to deliver more targeted efforts.
Marguerite Roza, Ellie RozaStates and districts face no shortage of seemingly overwhelming problems, especially the devastating learning loss among vulnerable students from extended pandemic school closures. But leaders do have money: States and districts got $123 billion in federal emergency (ARP ESSER) relief.
Baked in: School quality and home values
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.If you want to know which schools are good, ask a realtor—so goes the conventional wisdom—and families often do so.
Complicating factors: Evaluating a federal program to increase access to dual enrollment
Jeff MurrayIn 2016, the U.S. Department of Education launched an offshoot of the Pell Grant program intended to assist low-income high schoolers in accessing college credit through dual enrollment.
The Education Gadfly Show #826: Research Deep Dive: What we know about gifted education
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, we present the sixth edition of our Research Deep Dive series.
Public education’s compensation problem
Don ParkerGreat education requires great teachers, but the existing system makes it too difficult to retain the best and replace the worst. Fixing this requires, among other things, more generous pay. Instead we face the profession’s persistent, declining productivity.
The state of high-quality instructional materials
Nathaniel GrossmanWe know that most American students are suffering from unprecedented learning loss.
The mass exodus of teachers isn’t what you think it is. It’s far worse.
Jeremy AdamsDistricts across the land are witnessing a mass exit of teachers from classrooms, the likes of which has never been seen. It’s going to get worse, says Adams. And it isn’t about low salaries, paltry pensions, or lack of financial support. Teachers are leaving in droves because so many of our children are utterly broken, student behavior is abhorrent, and accountability is out of vogue in our schools.
A “no zeroes” grading policy is the worst of all worlds
Daniel BuckMore and more schools across the U.S. have adopted a new grading fad: Teachers cannot assign a grade lower than 50 percent. If a student doesn’t turn in an assignment? 50 percent. Do they miss every problem on a vocabulary quiz? 50 percent.
Bus commutes and their academic impacts in New York City
Jeff MurrayProviding transportation for students to and from school is a basic requirement of most public school districts in America. During the 2018–19 school year, nearly 60 percent of all K–12 students nationwide, public and private, were transported by those ubiquitous yellow buses.
Here’s why all students need agency rather than equity
Ian RoweAs a charter school leader in the South Bronx for the past decade, Rowe has seen what happens when resources are forcibly removed from the “privileged” and given to the “unprivileged” in the pursuit of “equity” over “equality”—with little regard for students’ uniqueness, humanity, or agency. Better is to teach disadvantaged children to defy, rather than confirm, diminished expectations.
The coming “second wave” of learning loss in 2023 and 2024
Mike GoldsteinCovid “learning loss” has two causes: the loss of in-person instruction in the spring of 2020 and the reliance on remote learning thereafter (which Tom Kane and colleagues quantify in an article in The Atlantic
Do gifted and talented programs contribute to racial imbalances in elementary school?
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.The clatter that rose in late 2021 over New York City’s plan to phase out its gifted and talented (G/T) programs had much to do with the presumed negative effects of such programs on racial sorting.
How to respond sensibly to the Uvalde shooting
Dale ChuAwful tragedies like the shooting in Uvalde notwithstanding, firearms will remain ubiquitous. The question is whether policymakers can bring measured thinking and nuance to bear in solving the thorny problem of gun violence in schools. This is particularly challenging in a media climate that hypes and distorts the prevalence of what happened in last week, even as schools continue to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
How to narrow the excellence gap in early elementary school
Michael J. PetrilliIn recent weeks, I’ve dug into the “excellence gap“—the sharp divides along lines of race
Natalie Wexler goes astray on the NAEP reading test
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Natalie Wexler has done much (along with the likes of Jeanne Chall, Don Hirsch, Dan Willingham, Kate Walsh, and Robert Pondiscio) to establish the fact that there’s science behind the act of reading and the related proposition that real reading (not just “decoding”) is no isolated skill but, rather, a complicated process of making sense of what one reads on the page in the context of what one a
The core conflict of interest in public education
Don ParkerIn my work on the teaching staff of a master’s level class in public policy, I am regularly dismayed by how often our students propose only governmental solutions to public problems.
The excellence gap opens early
Michael J. PetrilliLast week, I provided sobering evidence of the “excellence gap” among twelfth grade students—the sharp divides along lines of race and class in achievement at the highest levels.