Displaying 511-540 of 1173 results
Commentary
2.10.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We’re teaching mediocrity in literature classrooms

Daniel Buck

Since the beginning of the common school movement in the 1800s, we have valued our institutions of public education for their unifying nature, and the creation of a literate populace is an essential element of that goal. But much modern-day English instruction accomplishes neither. These middle school and high school classrooms barely resemble what you or I remember from our school years.

Commentary
2.10.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How did the pandemic affect school bullying?

Julia Wolf

When schools went online at the beginning of the pandemic, it was unclear how the sudden and disruptive shift would impact student behavior. Would cyberbullying, for example, increase with students spending more time on their devices? And would time away from other students increase bullying when students returned to buildings?

Commentary
2.3.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Did public education have it coming?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

In many ways, the educational failures of the past several years—including those caused by the pandemic—were far worse than they needed to be because of long-standing characteristics of American public education. Namely, the tendency to place employees’ interests first, the disempowering of parents, and the failure to innovate.

Commentary
2.3.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The Maus that roared: Who do you want to decide what’s best for kids?

Robert Pondiscio

The school board in McMinn County, Tennessee, voted 10-0 to remove Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel by cartoonist Art Spiegelman, from its eighth grade curriculum last month, citing concerns about explicit language and disturbing illustrations.

Commentary
2.3.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The curriculum transparency trap

Dale Chu

Amid the raging culture fires engulfing our politics and schools comes a concerted push among some conservative groups to codify a “parents’ bill of rights.” House minority leader Kevin McCarthy rolled out

Commentary
1.27.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

We all agree that college isn’t for everyone. We should start acting like it.

Michael J. Petrilli

One of the biggest shifts in education reform in recent years has been widening acknowledgment that the “college for all” mantra was misguided. Yet so far our commitment to “multiple pathways” to opportunity is almost all talk accompanied by very little action. High school course requirements and accountability systems continue to push almost all students into the college-prep track.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Charter school expansion narrows achievement gaps

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham’s new study, based on data from 400 metropolitan statistical areas and 534 micropolitan statistical areas, finds that an increase in total charter school enrollment share is associated with a significant narrowing of a metro area’s racial and socioeconomic math achievement gaps. With the country reeling from a pandemic that’s caused widespread learning loss, especially for disadvantaged students, getting more children into charter schools could help reverse those dire trends.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Americans have lost trust in public schools

Robert Pondiscio

Editor’s note: This essay was first published by The 74.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A century of school reform, through the eyes of Larry Cuban

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Confessions of a School Reformer, a new book by emeritus Stanford education professor Larry Cuban, still going strong at eighty-eight, combines personal memoir with a history and analysis of U.S.

Commentary
1.27.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Virtual schools should get more support and attention

Jeff Murray

A recent release from the Education Commission of the States reminds us that the term “virtual school” refers to several different types of educational options, and that the ecosystem—more important now than ever before—requires specific attention and support from policymakers.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Some Republicans want Miguel Cardona gone. They might come to regret it.

Dale Chu

A letter seeking federal law enforcement intervention into threats aimed at school board members has caused a hullabaloo one year into U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s otherwise unremarkable tenure. Though his role in soliciting the letter is unclear, some Congressional Republicans would love nothing more than to see him become the fall guy. They would do well to consider how their thirst for blood might cut both ways.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

On teaching courage

Jennifer Frey

In recent days, American students have been learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and his leadership in the American civil rights movement.

Commentary
1.20.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for starting NAEP in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

Way back in the late 1960s, when federal officials and eminent psychologists were first designing the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they probably never contemplated testing students younger than nine. After all, the technology for mass testing at the time—bubble sheets and No.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Now is not the time for OCR to meddle in school disciplinary policy

Michael J. Petrilli

Any day now, Catherine Lhamon, the assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights, is expected to release new guidance for school districts that’ll reinstate an Obama-era policy limiting the use of suspensions and the like in the name of reducing racial disparities in “exclusionary discipline.” It couldn’t come at a worse time.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Mission, vision, and virtue

Jennifer Frey

Education in the classical sense is padeia: a holistic approach to student formation that is geared towards the cultivation of the student’s mind, imagination, perception, and emotions so that they become the type of person who can flourish and thrive inside the school community and well beyond.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop focusing on class size

Daniel Buck

The Nation ran quite a headline last month: “To Reduce Inequality in Our Education System, Reduce Class Sizes.” Surely we might expect substantive evidence to follow such a pronouncement, especially in the midst of a staffing shortage.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Not much to show nationally from a decade of teacher evaluation reforms

Victoria McDougald

Spurred in large part by an infusion of over $4 billion in federal Race to the Top funds, beginning in 2009, nearly all states and the District of Columbia implemented major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems.

Commentary
1.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Sharpening the picture of early pandemic schooling

Jeff Murray

While it’s no secret that pandemic-induced remote learning was a disaster for almost all students in 2020 and 2021, we must remind ourselves that in-person education models weren't so great

Commentary
12.16.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Civility, democracy, and education

Jennifer Frey

Most of our founding fathers believed that a democracy is only as good as its citizens, since democracy only flourishes with citizens who are capable of governing themselves. But we have lost our understanding of the connection between virtue, self-government, and democracy. Indeed, few students today learn anything about virtue, let alone see any connection between it and the fate of our republic.

Commentary
12.16.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Online courses and college degree completion

Jeff Murray

Students’ inability to enroll in required courses—due to capacity or scheduling constraints—can stymie progress toward a college degree. New findings published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis suggest that online courses can help keep students on track to college graduation.

Commentary
12.16.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Boosting the effectiveness of STEM role models

Jeff Murray

Providing relatable role models for young people is a guiding principle by which STEM practitioners hope to motivate scientists of the future and diversify their ranks. Conscious of the importance of this endeavor, New York University researchers Jessica Gladstone and Andrei Cimpian examined the literature on role modeling to identify strategies for maximizing its motivational impact.

Commentary
12.9.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The best and worst metro areas for school quality may surprise you

Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham newest study ranks schools in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, with heavy focus on academic growth. Many of America’s “superstar cities” appear far less super when examined through this lens. Some have a right to brag—but others would be well advised to stop resting on their laurels and work harder to improve all students’ progress.

Commentary
12.9.2021
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Education’s enduring love affair with “luxury beliefs”

Robert Pondiscio

The proof of a powerful idea is how well it sticks. Once you hear about it “you start to see it everywhere,” as Bari Weiss puts it. She was describing “luxury beliefs,” a phrase coined by Rob Henderson, an Air Force veteran and Ph.D.