ESSER funds are ending. What does this mean for pandemic learning loss?
Districts have used almost $190 billion in ESSER funds to help students recover from pandemic learning loss by implementing a wide variety of initiatives, including
Districts have used almost $190 billion in ESSER funds to help students recover from pandemic learning loss by implementing a wide variety of initiatives, including
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey, the national research director and a se
If we care about doing educational equity right, we need to call the bluff of those who want to lower expectations for students’ effort “because equity.” Those so-called advocates need to do some of their own homework—and penance—as well.
A new report from PEN America claims that 1.3 million teachers, roughly a third of full-time classroom staff in the United States, are now forced to work under “educational gag orders.” PEN tallies forty pieces of legislation restricting teacher speech across twenty-two states as of November 1, 2023.
Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist.
In recent months, housing programs for school teachers have begun to receive high-profile attention. And with good reason: As costs of living have risen, teacher salaries have not kept pace, thereby decreasing some educators’ ability to live near their workplaces. But are such policies actually a good thing? In short: We really don’t know.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Alan Safran, the CEO and co-founder of Saga Education, joins Mike and David to discuss best prac
Shuttering under-enrolled schools is usually seen as a bad thing—for students and for neighborhoods. But that need not be the case. An equitable approach to school closures would commit to placing affected students in higher-performing schools.
My students caught me smelling an old book once. While they were silently reading one day, I noticed a tattered book on the shelf. So what did I do? Following deep instincts, I pulled it down, cracked the spine, and breathed deeply. “Mr. Buck, what are you DOING?!” I turned around to find the whole class staring at me.
Many states are overhauling their early literacy policies to align with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge building. Effectively implementing these reforms is crucial, as high-quality reading instruction can improve both academic and life outcomes for children.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Chad Aldeman, the founder of Read Not Guess and a columnist for The 74, joins Mik
Better late than never, New York State has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Assuming the legislature grants the request, here’s how New York could maximize the program’s impact.
As the population of English learners (ELs) in grades K–12 grows, so do the challenges school districts face in identifying gifted students and putting in place appropriate enrichment and acceleration opportunities for them.
Fordham’s latest report, "New Home, Same School," analyses the relationships among residential mobility, school mobility, and charter school enrollment. It finds, among other things, that changing schools is associated with a small decline in academic progress in math and a slight increase in suspensions—and that residentially mobile students in charter schools are less likely to change schools than their counterparts in traditional public schools.
This is the fourth in a series on doing educational equity right.
Equitably funding education in America means providing more resources to students who need additional support.
Khaya Njumbe enrolled at GEO Academies’ 21st Century Charter School, in Gary, Indiana, when he was eleven years old. By age thirteen, he’d become the youngest student in state history to earn an associate degree.
If school funding is the issue around which it’s easiest to find common ground across left and right, school discipline might be the hardest. That shouldn’t be surprising, given how divisive our country’s debate has been on the related issue of criminal justice and law enforcement. But we can begin to bridge these ideological differences if we commit to “doing educational equity right.”
I used to judge teachers who quit midyear. How could they abandon their students? Didn’t they sign a contract? Could they just really not cut it? Well, now I get it. Midyear quitting may be unseemly, but it’s understandable.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.
Alternative licensure pathways—which equip prospective new educators for the classroom in ways other than traditional, university-based teacher preparation programs—aim to expand and diversify the ranks of K–12 teachers.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce ended 2023 with some tidings of potential joy for America’s workforce by approving two proposed bills on a strong bipartisan basis. Committee approval in one chamber is just a start, of course, but bipartisanship in the current House is a good sign.
Editor's note: This was first published on the author's Substack, The Education Daly.
Last week, Petrilli identified three rules for “doing educational equity right” that will result in smart policy designs and make it likelier that the political right will get on board the equity train. Now let’s apply those rules to the topic of school finance.
Shortly before schools—and Fordham—shuttered their doors for the holiday break, Tim Daly asked a simple question in these pages: Should schools ban smart phones?
As former teachers in a variety of settings—charter, traditional public, and “transfer” schools—we read with great interest our colleague Daniel Buck’s recent piece, “In defense of the traditional classroom
Whether school discipline falls differently on students from different racial groups is an ongoing concern for families, school and community leaders, and policymakers.
The education world lost a true reformer on Christmas Day—and the charter-school world lost one of its true heroes—when Linda Brown passed away at eighty-one at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Truancy” may no longer be the right word for it, maybe not even “absenteeism,” for both imply being missing from a place where one is supposed to be. “Truancy,” with its overtone of misbehavior and illegality, suggests willfulness, i.e., that one is intentionally missing, while “absenteeism” is a more neutral term with no suggestion of motive.
A new report from the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice adds to the robust literature on school choice in New Orleans, shedding light on the ways in which the centralized enrollment system in the Crescent City has grown and evolved, as well a