#920: Integration and charter schools, with Brian Kisida
In a special National Charter Schools Week Education Gadfly Show podcast, B
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.
It seems every day that yet another story hits the headlines about a school banning phones. Of course, the large majority of schools had nominal prohibitions previously, but they left enforcement up to teachers, which meant most students still slipped them out during class, at lunch, and in the halls.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Marian Tupy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the founder and
Editor’s note: This is the third and final part in a series on teacher evaluation reform.
Fordham is among a wee group of reformers that’s paid attention to advanced education over the last twenty-five years. This disregard has resulted, among other problems, in a lack of informative research for the field. Our latest report addresses one of many unknowns: whether districts across the nation have adopted policies and programs to identify, support, and cultivate the talents of all students capable of tackling advanced-level work.
The conflict over civics education is unnecessary, driven more by cultural combatants and politicians than by vast divides among parents and citizens regarding what schools should teach and children should learn. If those who inflame these debates would hold their fire, we could build on a latent accord among the clients of civics education.
Editor’s note: This is the second part in a series on teacher evaluation reform. Part one recalled how teacher evaluation became a thing.
As the downsides of a “college for all” perspective become clear, it’
Phone bans are the hottest education policy since banning critical race theory. Districts across the country are strictly limiting their use, locking them in Yondr bags, or confiscating and sealing them away before the first bell. The next step in making classrooms conducive to teaching and learning: limiting the laptops.
Noah Smith, writing in his Substack newsletter last week, argues that Americans are imprudently burying their heads in the sand at the increasing prospect of a global Sino-American clash.
Across the country, schools are working to help students recover from pandemic learning losses.
High-quality early childhood education (ECE) offers a promising means of boosting both achievement and equity, yet districts and states across the nation face educator
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly. Are teachers interchangeable parts?
For the past several months, Petrilli been pumping out posts about “doing educational equity right.” This series concludes with a twist by looking at three ways that schools are doing educational equity wrong: by engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations, tying teachers’ hands without good reason, and acting like equity isn’t just an important thing, but the only thing.
Last weekend, I gave a talk at the U.S.
In the mid-1970s, Ference Marton and Roger Säljö of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden noticed that their students took different approaches to learning.
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.
Last week, I did something unorthodox. I asked teachers to message me directly via X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their frustrations. Within hours, I received almost 200 messages expressing not only frustration, but also hope, humor, fatalism, and quite a bit of hesitancy to converse with a complete stranger on the internet.
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.
New York City public schools offer two types of gifted and talented education.
For many students and teachers, the pivot from in-person to remote learning in March 2020 was a sudden lurch from the known to the unknown. Writ large, research shows the academic impact of that move was devastating. But details matter—and so do exceptions.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.
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.
I recently watched a seventh-grade math lesson that did a better job than I ever did as a teacher asking kids relatable theoretical probability questions. How would you represent the probability of a six-foot-tall seventh grader? How would you represent the probability of getting a test in school in any given week? Making sense of where students were coming from was a fascinating puzzle.