Podcast
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Can we revive standards-based reform?
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Relinquishment or instructional coherence: What’s the right goal for districts?
The “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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Evidence, struggling math students, and California’s 2022 math framework
The proposed California Mathematics Framework generated a storm of controversy when the first draft was released in early 2021. Critics objected to the document’s condemnation of tracking and negative portrayal of acceleration for high-achieving students.
Undefined
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning
Education Gadfly Show #819: The pod on (pandemic) pods
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Ashley Jochim, a principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins Mike
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Announcing the National Working Group on Advanced Education
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is pleased to announce the launch of the National Working Group on Advanced Education. The Working Group’s mission is to promote research, policies, and practices that will develop the full capacities of students with high academic potential, especially Black and Hispanic students and those coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Undefined
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning
Education Gadfly Show #805: High schools didn’t get the memo that college isn’t for everyone
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast (listen on
Podcast
Career & Technical Education, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning
Education Gadfly Show #791: Is this the end of gifted education in New York City?
Podcast
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Addressing constructive criticisms of Fordham’s report on state civics and U.S. history standards
Our recent study of states’ U.S. history and civics standards attracted some constructive criticism from both the left and the right. It was, after all, explicitly bipartisan. Here are our responses to four critiques.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Using deeper learning to strengthen our democracy
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.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning
The Education Gadfly Show #784: Remote learning worked well for some students. What schools can learn from that.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
State civics and U.S. history standards are less politically biased than before. Let’s keep it that way.
In 2020, as we began to look at state U.S. history standards for the first time since 2011, I was concerned about what we would find.
Commentary
Governance, Standards
How not to write state standards for civics and U.S. history
As discussed in Fordham’s new report, many states aren’t making the grade when it comes to their civics and U.S. history standards, which are often vague to the point of being meaningless.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Strong standards are vital for making history and civics central in K–12 education
Gone are the days when we could all agree with Ben Franklin’s sunny admonition: “Indeed the general tendency of reading good history must be, to fix in the minds of youth deep impressions of the beauty and usefulness of virtue of all kinds.” Instead, we must cope with political polarization, schools preoccupied with the achievement gap, students who learn from social media, and adults who are t
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
5 things I’ve learned from teaching U.S. history to high schoolers
I’ve taught U.S. history to high schoolers for almost twenty years, during which time I’ve worked in multiple states with students of varying personal and cultural backgrounds. Below are the five things that I think I’ve learned. 1) Our students need more exposure to U.S. history.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
We need better civics education, but it won’t happen anytime soon
Fordham’s new report found that twenty states have “inadequate” civics and U.S. history standards that need a complete overhaul. An additional fifteen states were deemed to have “mediocre” standards that require substantial revisions. This fits the lackluster showing of U.S. students on the NAEP exams in these subjects, and suggests that some schools barely teach this content at all. Unfortunately, the obstacles in the way of improving this sad state run up and down the line.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
How to strengthen U.S. history and civics standards
For our constitutional democracy to survive, much rests on our ability to resolve “…differences even as we respect them,” which is The State of State Standards for Civics and History in 2021 report’s definition of the social purpose of civic education.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards
The Education Gadfly Show #776: Can curriculum reform succeed where the rest of standards-based reform failed?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Proof that it’s possible to approach civics and U.S. history in a balanced way
Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Or both or neither or some of each?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching U.S. history and civics in America’s pluralistic society
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s review of state standards for U.S. history and civics comes at a critical moment in American civic life.
Report
Standards
The State of State Standards for Civics and U.S. History in 2021
Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Such a divisive question leaves little room for the complexity, richness, and nuance of our country’s past and present. But it’s the sort of question that often seems to get asked in today’s polarized environment. Small wonder, then, that the tattered condition of civics and U.S. history education constitutes a national crisis.
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Does public preschool benefit students from Kindergarten to college?
A trio of researchers from the University of Chicago, MIT, and UC Berkeley recently released a working paper that indicates a multitude of positive long-term effects—very long term, in fact—associated with attendance at public preschool.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Lessons learned from 10 years of pioneering blended learning
In 1908, the Ford Motor Company unveiled the Model T and introduced a reliable, affordable automobile for the middle class. While revolutionary, the Model T also took twelve hours and 7,882 tasks to assemble 1,481 parts, and increased production time meant increased costs. In 1913, Ford introduced an assembly line and cut production to ninety-three minutes.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Standards
First, do no harm: The initial impact of the Common Core on student learning
Ever since their creation and adoption over a decade ago, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been hotly debated and intensely villainized. The backlash to the CCSS initially took many advocates and supporters by surprise, as state education standards have existed in the U.S.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How any school can personalize learning, part II
In part I of this two-part series, I wrote about three of the most common practices teachers implement in elementary schools that successfully personalize learning: giving each child a learning plan, organizing instruction around class-level and individual mastery, and using grouping an
Report
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
The Acceleration Imperative: A Plan to Address Elementary Students’ Unfinished Learning in the Wake of Covid-19
In school districts and charter school networks nationwide, instructional leaders are developing plans to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year. To help kick-start their planning process, we are proud to present The Acceleration Imperative, an open-source, evidence-based document created with input from dozens of current and former chief academic officers, scholars, and others with deep expertise and experience in high-performing, high-poverty elementary schools.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How any school can personalize learning, part I
In a previous Flypaper post, Mike Petrilli described the challenge of personalizing instruction for our youngest learners as the “Mount Everest” of education.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How elementary schools can address unfinished learning through personalization
Editor’s note: This is the fifth and final installment in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
