Displaying 511-540 of 1492 results
Podcast
10.23.2019
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

The Education Gadfly Show: Early warning: Kindergarten readiness skills are trending downward

On this week’s podcast, Megan Kuhfeld, a research scientist at NWEA, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss her recent, sobering findings about the reading and math skills of children entering kindergarten. On the Research Minute, Adam Tyner examines how “stereotype threat” affects the results of cognitive ability tests.

Commentary
10.18.2019
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

NewSchools isn't overselling SEL: A response to Checker Finn

Stacey Childress

Our team at NewSchools recently released a report titled, Using Expanded Measures of Student Success for School Improvement. In it, we share some on-the-ground lessons from innovative public schools in our portfolio.

Commentary
10.16.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning

Texas’s shale boom boosted local tax bases. Here’s how it affected schools.

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

New and fascinating research uses a creative study design and a unique data set to address whether a thriving local economy leads to better student outcomes. Specifically, it examines how the Texas boom in shale oil and gas drilling, which brought with it large and localized effects on wages and the tax base, impacted district schools.

Commentary
10.15.2019
Charter Schools

“Miss Virginia”: Uzo Adoba brings champion for children to the big screen

Erika Sanzi

A woman scrubs the bathroom floor on her hands and knees, hair pulled back in a scarf. Another woman dressed in a business suit applies lipstick at the mirror. Both are mothers. Both are black. One is a congresswoman. The other cleans the toilets and floors in the congresswoman’s office.

Commentary
10.15.2019
Charter Schools, Private School Choice

The real story: School choice is working

Benjamin J. Lindquist

On September 25th, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) issued a report titled “School Choice in the United States: 2019,” which sorely misrepresents the prevalence, value, and impact of school choice over the last twenty years.

Commentary
10.11.2019
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Everything we know about teacher effectiveness

Andrew Scanlan

On Wednesday, we sat down with Dan Goldhaber, director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), on our Education Gadfly Show podcast for thirty minutes of engaging discussion.

Commentary
10.11.2019
Charter Schools

Do all boats rise when charter schools expand?

Neerav Kingsland

I. A hypothesis  All organizations are founded on a hypothesis. Deliberate organizations are explicit about their hypothesis. The City Fund’s hypothesis, where I’m the Managing Partner, is that educational opportunity in cities will increase if:

Commentary
10.9.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

When it comes to charter schools, it’s Democrats who are in denial

David Griffith

Dozens of studies have found black and brown students in urban charter schools make substantially more academic progress than otherwise similar students in traditional public schools; literature suggests achievement in district-run schools increases in response to competition from charters; and Fordham’s new study confirms the logical implication of those two strands: an increase in the percentage of students in a community who enroll in charter schools leads to systemic gains.

Commentary
10.9.2019
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

AP: Great for gifted high schoolers

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew Scanlan

When considering the available options for gifted high-school kids, the Advanced Placement (AP) program may not be the first thing that comes to mind. That’s too bad because AP might be America’s most effective large-scale “gifted and talented” program at the high school level.

Commentary
10.8.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Standards

Access, equity, and quality in dual enrollment

Lexi Barrett, Ryan Reyna

Programs that allow high school students the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school are growing fast. In addition to familiar options like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school—otherwise known as college in high school programs–are increasingly popular models in states.

Commentary
10.2.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning

Advanced coursework gets a needed boost

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Last week in Austin, at the annual “summit” sponsored by the PIE (“Policy Innovators in Education”) Network, prizes were conferred on a handful of state-based education-reform groups that had accomplished remarkable feats in the previous year, this despite the reform-averse mood that chills much of the nation.

Report
9.26.2019
Charter Schools

Rising Tide: Charter School Market Share and Student Achievement

David Griffith

Plenty of studies have compared the progress of students in charter schools versus traditional public schools. And more than a dozen have examined the “competitive effects” of charters on neighboring district schools.

Commentary
9.25.2019
Accountability & Testing, ESSA, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A new era of accountability in education has barely just begun

Michael J. Petrilli

Most states have spent the past decade overhauling their standards, tests, and accountability systems, and finally committing real resources to capacity-building, especially in the form of curriculum implementation. These pieces have only begun to come together in the last year or two, culminating with the release of school ratings as required by ESSA. What’s needed isn’t to spin the wheel of education policy once again, but to show some patience and commitment—and finish what we started.

Commentary
9.25.2019
Charter Schools, Governance

Charter schools point to new ways of racially integrating public schools

Bruno V. Manno

The racial integration or segregation of K–12 schools is again a debate topic in education circles. Today’s controversy has a new twist: casting charter schools as the main antagonist to integration, claiming they resegregate public schools.

Commentary
9.24.2019
Accountability & Testing, ESSA, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

In math, grade-level tests are holding back low-achieving students

Joel Rose

Imagine that you’re a sixth-grade math teacher. It’s the first day of school, and the vast majority of your students arrived multiple years behind where they should be. Your job is to teach them concepts such as understanding percentages and dividing fractions.

Commentary
9.18.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

Why has AP succeeded when so many other reforms have failed?

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew Scanlan

American K–12 education is awash in reforms, nostrums, interventions, silver bullets, pilot programs, snake oil peddlers, advocates, and crusaders, not to mention innumerable private foundations that occasionally emerge from their endless cycles of strategic planning to unload their latest brainstorms upon the land. Yet when subjected to close scrutiny, not much actually “works.” The six-decade old Advanced Placement program is a rare and welcome exception.

Commentary
9.18.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

Low public support for ability grouping is an opportunity for personalized pacing

Brandon L. Wright

The latest Education Next poll asked respondents whether they support ability grouping, whereby students take classes with peers at similar academic achievement levels, and for middle school the majority’s answer was no.

Commentary
9.18.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

How two personalized learning models accelerate the progress of their high-achieving students

Michael J. Petrilli

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to meet standards at their own pace.

Commentary
9.18.2019
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How charter school attendance affects students’ special-needs status

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Charters schools are often criticized for not enrolling enough or not adequately serving special student populations, particularly students with special needs. A new study by Tufts University’s Elizabeth Setren evaluates this claim with a unique dataset in Boston.