Displaying 31-60 of 203 results
Commentary
10.7.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The college gender gap begins in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

A recent Wall Street Journal article set off a pundit-palooza on the topic of the female advantage in higher education, with many suggesting that young men have “given up on college.” But American students who are academically well-prepared for college continue to matriculate and graduate. It’s just that many more of them are female. The reason for that starts in kindergarten.

Commentary
10.7.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Critical race theory distracts from academic underachievement

Bob Woodson, Ian Rowe

With a new school year underway, parents, teachers, and children anxiously return to classrooms amidst an ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But this year, school board members, teachers, academics, politicians, and parents continue to argue over critical race theory and how to enact its version of equity.

Commentary
10.5.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

There’s more to the education story than what’s in the news

Emily Freitag

Education news is pretty depressing these days. Last week’s feed included articles about cafeteria staffing shortages and supply chain concerns, reporting about declining enrollment, predictions about resignations due to vaccine mandates, findings on teacher stress, reporting about an uptick in student fights, and lots of documentation of demonization in adults’ battles over mask policy.

Commentary
9.30.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

We are squandering the talents of too many low-income high achievers

Aaron Churchill , Michael J. Petrilli

Far too many high-achieving children are drifting through middle and high school. Despite their potential, they don’t end up taking AP exams, achieving high marks on their ACTs, or going to four-year colleges. This limits their ability to move up the social ladder, threatens U.S. economic competitiveness, and derails our aspirations for a more just society. We must stop buying into the false assumption that high-achieving kids will do fine on their own.

Commentary
9.30.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Measuring the social, emotional, and academic toll of remote learning

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

After more than eighteen months of pandemic-induced commotion to education, data continue to roll in regarding various negative impacts on young people.

Commentary
9.23.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Performative teaching is undermining trust in schools

Robert Pondiscio

Increasingly, teachers are not shy about expressing their views on charged racial and political views. This may be a symptom of a profound shift in our relationship with institutions and the role they play in our lives. Where institutions once functioned as molds of our character and behavior, they’re now platforms on which we stand to be seen. And this could be cratering our trust in them.

Commentary
9.23.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Rigorous courses are a good thing—and good for equity

Brandon L. Wright

“As a broader mechanism for equity, [Advanced Placement] has fallen short, unable to overcome the powerful structural forces that disadvantage far too many students,” writes Anne Kim in a recent long-form article in Washington Monthly titled “AP’s Equity Face-Plant.” “If the ultimate goal

Commentary
9.17.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Five crucial considerations to protect social and emotional learning

The Master Teacher, Inc.

The growth in popularity of social and emotional learning (SEL) is bringing with it increased attention to and scrutiny of what exactly SEL means and questions about whether it is something more than just another educational fad or ideological movement.

Commentary
9.16.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

School choice is a better instrument for racial justice than critical race theory

Daniel Buck

The outlook has gotten bleak for the anti-racist and CRT movements in U.S. classrooms, as Americans saw these ideas in action and largely recoiled from them. But there's another K–12 strategy for achieving racial justice: school choice.

Commentary
9.16.2021
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Blinding ourselves to America’s achievement woes

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Much as happened after A Nation at Risk, the U.S. finds itself facing a bleak education fate, even as many deny the problem. Back then, however, the denials came mostly from the education establishment, while governors, business leaders, and even U.S.

Commentary
9.9.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What 9/11 means for America’s schools twenty years later

Dale Chu

This week, we remember and reflect upon an unforgettably tragic day. This comes amid throes of national conflicts over information, misinformation, even the nature of facts and truth themselves. Schools can’t fix all this, but they must reclaim their vital role in ensuring that Americans understand their history and the interconnectedness of today’s world.

Commentary
9.9.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Seven questions about September 11

Lamar Alexander

This advice from my friend Lamar Alexander for teaching about 9/11 was published twice by Fordham, first in 2003 and again (lightly revised) in 2011.

Commentary
9.9.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

From the personal to the political, for the love of freedom

William Damon

This superb short essay by Stanford professor Bill Damon is a hard-hitting piece from a gentle, thoughtful, and learned psychologist, and (as with Senator Alexander's contribution) was first published by Fordham in 2003

Commentary
9.9.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Alternative certification policies and teacher recruitment outcomes

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

A recent study published in Educational Policy is a timely look at the ways in which states’ alternative certification (or AC) policies for teachers have impacted the composition of the corps of novice educators.

Commentary
9.2.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A commonsense alternative to critical race theory bans

Robert Pondiscio, Tracey Schirra

There are good arguments to be made in favor of so-called critical race theory “bans” that have now been considered in some form by more than half of all US states.

Commentary
9.2.2021
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A better way to improve literacy among Black and Hispanic children

Ian Rowe

For the last half-century, if you read the mission statement of virtually any education reform organization, you will find earnest language about closing the racial or class achievement gaps. Unfortunately, not only have gaps failed to narrow during this multi-decade obsession, overall achievement levels have also remained mostly static.

Commentary
9.2.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

A downbeat assessment of students’ mental and social-emotional health in the Covid era

Jeff Murray

It is no exaggeration to say that very little good can likely come from a global pandemic, especially in the short term. And while the “term” of the current pandemic seems to lengthen every day, we are still firmly in the realm of the immediate when discussing impacts.

Commentary
8.30.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Using deeper learning to strengthen our democracy

Kent McGuire

The past eighteen months have been some of the most tumultuous in the history of our nation. The twin pandemics of Covid-19 and social injustice have highlighted how today’s students face very different expectations than students encountered in previous generations.

Commentary
8.27.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Leading schools with vision in a time of change

Kathleen Porter-Magee

At Partnership Schools, we believe that one thing that separates effective turnaround efforts from failed experiments is the ability of the leader to articulate a clear, coherent, and actionable vision for change.

Commentary
8.27.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Every high schooler in America deserves the U.S. history and civics education I have had

Cate Bikales

Black Lives Matter protests, raging wildfires, a monumental election, and the global pandemic. As a seventeen-year-old growing up in Portland, Oregon, these past eighteen months have been the craziest I have ever experienced. Never would I have thought that I would essentially miss the entirety of my junior year of high school, forced into taking classes in a solely online environment.

Commentary
8.26.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Lax school discipline won’t cut it as kids return to school

Michael J. Petrilli

As traumatized students return to classrooms, educators must be ready to handle worsened behavior issues, as some kids externalize the suffering they’ve been through and re-learn how to “do school.” Unfortunately, the discipline policies in place in many schools may exacerbate the challenge, potentially setting us up for disaster.

Commentary
8.20.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Don’t ignore direct SEL instruction

William Rost

Advocates for social and emotional learning (SEL) have pushed for schools to embrace the teaching of healthy life skills to students.