Actually, teacher evaluation reform was good—when it happened.
Tim Daly, a friend with whom I usually and enthusiastically agree, recently published a three-part series autopsying the teacher-evaluation reforms of the 2010’s.
Tim Daly, a friend with whom I usually and enthusiastically agree, recently published a three-part series autopsying the teacher-evaluation reforms of the 2010’s.
In his new book, “The Parent Revolution,” school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis explains the notable plummet in the public’s trust of public education, especially in the past five years. By his telling, school choice is the answer to all that ails us. But he’s likely overselling its healing powers.
In an effort to avoid prescriptive top-down mandates, the school accountability provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allow states flexibility in determining what measures they’ll use to assess school quality, how much “weight” they carry, and over what time periods they’re calculated.
In a special National Charter Schools Week Education Gadfly Show podcast, B
The issue of bad teachers is the proverbial Gordian Knot, and pulling on a single thread won’t untie it. If we want to get serious about ridding our schools of bad teachers, we must attack many difficult issues all at once—including low teacher pay, collective bargaining agreements, pension systems, and teacher evaluations. Alternatively, we might just focus on weeding out ineffective rookies.
Editor’s note: This is the third and final part in a series on teacher evaluation reform.
Editor’s note: This is the second part in a series on teacher evaluation reform. Part one recalled how teacher evaluation became a thing.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Derrell Bradford, the president of 50CAN, joins Mike and David to discuss a new coalit
To gauge the magnitude of global learning loss during the pandemic, a team at the World Bank examined data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2018–2022, which tests fifteen-year-olds in math, reading, and science.
The school choice movement continues to rack up dramatic wins nationwide. This growth in “educational freedom,” as many advocates now call it, is a fantastic development. But under the surface of these victories, an important debate is brewing: how to balance the drive for maximum choice with other values, including fiscal responsibility and fairness.
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are arguably the most important international tests in education. Both have been administered for decades in dozens of countries. Each new set of student outcomes is tracked, analyzed, and endlessly written about.
The closure of schools in response to the seismic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on education worldwide. As nations grappled with closures lasting varying lengths of time, the implications for student learning became increasingly evident.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Lorén Cox, the policy director for the Education and Society p
Congress is currently considering legislation to update the way that the federal government funds education research and development.
Many of the conditions that led to the prominence of “no-excuses” charter schools a quarter-century ago have returned. For students, teachers, and parents who have never lost their appetite for safe and orderly schools, it can’t come soon enough.
There are, generally speaking, two ways to report students’ performance on tests. One is normative, and it compares a student’s performance to his peers. The second is criterion, and it compares a student’s performance to learning standards, indicating grade-level proficiency and is independent of peers’ test performance.
Examination of Covid-era impacts on students, families, and schools continues apace. Getting a full picture of the fallout, who was affected, and how helps education leaders better direct their resources to serve impacted students.
Last year, Colorado’s legislature established an “Accountability, Accreditation, Student Performance, and Resource Inequity Task Force”—a twenty-six-member behemoth charged with, among other things, making recommendations on the future of the state’s K–12 asses
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.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Ray Domanico, the director of education policy at the Manhattan institute, joins Mi
“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.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn, Fordham’s president emeritus—and the original Education Gadfly—joi
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kara Arundel, a senior reporter at K-12 Dive, joins Mike to disc
The results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are in—an international standardized test of fifteen-year-olds and the first look at how countries compare post-pandemic—and the picture they paint of American education is disheartening. Here are four trends that you need to know: 1. U.S. math scores collapsed and reading stagnated.
Recent legislative efforts across the country have strengthened efforts to align reading instruction with the science of reading. These laws typically require teachers to use methods and materials aligned to the solid evidence base on how children best learn to read.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tim Daly, the CEO of Ed Navigator, joins Mike to discuss the causes and harms of grade inflation—
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a hard-hitting 2,300-word expose by Dana Goldstein and colleagues asking “Why is the College Board pushing to expand Advanced Placement?” Its primary answer: to rake in tens of millions of dollars a year and to support CEO David Coleman’s exorbitant sal
In my previous post, we defined grade inflation and reviewed (lots of) new evidence suggesting that it is a barrier to pandemic recovery—especially for less privileged students. Today, we will identify solutions.
After handily defeating his Republican rival for the governorship of red-hued Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear is having a moment as a center-left moderate who could run for president in 2028. But we education reformers should curb our enthusiasm because Beshear’s stances are alien to ours.