“Go to law school.” This was the advice that my mother—who had spent her entire career as a high school English teacher—gave me upon my college graduation. She also advised me on which career to avoid: teaching. My mother was adamant that I not follow her footsteps into the classroom.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kymyon
Recent news stories have pushed the narrative that parents are using education savings accounts to buy items of questionable educational value and relevance, including chicken coops, trampolines, and tickets to SeaWorld. But perhaps ESAs’ permissiveness is a feature, not a bug—and perhaps officials would be wise to go one step further and give teachers their own accounts.
I’ve lost count of the number of teachers I know who have either left their school or entirely abandoned education because of student behavior. A student physically threatened a friend, and the administration provided no consequence. This friend quit soon thereafter. Another started a family and just couldn’t remain emotionally present as a father while dealing with chaos at work all day.
Several studies show that a combination of market pressures
What does it cost to retain a less-than-proficient student and provide him or her with remediation and additional support?
Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
The pandemic changed what the American public wants from K–12 education.
I have held firm to this belief since my early days of teaching: Getting students to proficiency and above in reading and math is a commitment to social justice and democracy. Education can empower students to change the world, especially when it counters cycles of poverty.
The release of “The Nation’s Report Card” on October 24, 2022, created shock waves though out the country’s education and policy establishments.
We were glad to function in that capacity for Virginia as we’ve done for many other states over the years. But it’s also been implied by some that we tried to inject the draft standards with conservative bias, even to “whitewash” history, and that is completely false.
Last week, as we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we recalled his civil rights activism as an admirable example of creating what John Lewis called “good trouble.” Dr. King is an American icon precisely because he possessed the wisdom and courage to hold America up to her own high standards: that all men are created equal and must be treated equally before the law.
Reversing decades of economic struggle in America’s former manufacturing centers is a high priority for leaders in cities and regions across the nation. Many would like to see technology-focused industries lead such a resurgence, but do they have enough qualified workers? And if not, how can they increase those numbers?
Many experts have lauded community schools as a means of mitigating the impact of pandemic-era c
Editor’s note: This essay was part of an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that is published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
Advocates have turned “equity” into a trigger word by pitting the concept against “excellence.” But that line of argument is not only politically unpopular, it’s wrong. In fact, excellence is not the enemy of equity, but the antidote to inequity.
House Republicans this week introduced a curriculum transparency bill aimed at ensuring parents know what their kids are learning in school, particularly when that includes “divisive concepts” like critical race theory, which has been banned from classrooms or restricted i
Editor’s note: On November 17, 2022, seventeen members of the National Working Group on Advanced Education met for its third meeting in Indianapolis.
A recent study by Eric Hanushek, Jacob Light, Paul Peterson, Laura Talpey, and Ludger Woessmann finds that, contrary to
A common observation made by critics of school choice is that it has little to offer families in rural communities where the population isn’t large enough to support multiple schools, and where transportation is already burdensome. I’ve made the point myself, and I’m a school choice proponent.
Sold a Story, the podcast series from American Public Media, is essential listening for parents and teachers. Through six episodes, host Emily Hanford documents how schools failed to adequately teach reading to students over the past thirty years.
School district superintendents have an unenviable job description—ranging from high-level policy decisions on curriculum and finance to small-scale daily operations questions and small-p politics with stakeholders at all levels—so it’s no surprise that many
One hallmark of charter schools—distinct from their traditional district peers—is flexibility in their HR practices.
School closures are awful. I won’t argue otherwise.
As one article at National Affairs put it, the cries about a nation-wide teacher shortage are “heavy on anecdote and speculation” but rather light on data.
By now the unfinished learning that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic is old news.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, David Griffith talks with
In the wake of dismal NAEP reading scores released earlier this year,
On this week’s special, year-end Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli looks back on 2022’
