Displaying 511-540 of 2094 results
Commentary
5.26.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Exit interview: NCTQ’s Kate Walsh

Robert Pondiscio

Few people in education reform have had greater impact than Kate Walsh, who recently handed over the reins of the National Council on Teacher Quality, which she led for twenty years. No one has done more to make raising the level of teacher preparation a focus of reform efforts. Here, Robert Pondiscio talks to her about her past, the present, and her views on what’s to come.

Commentary
5.26.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

The excellence gap opens early

Michael J. Petrilli

Last week, I provided sobering evidence of the “excellence gap” among twelfth grade students—the sharp divides along lines of race and class in achievement at the highest levels.

Commentary
5.26.2022
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Can states clean up their teacher pension messes?

Aaron Churchill

Many state teacher pension systems are woefully underfunded, impose significant costs on teachers and schools, and shortchange tho

Commentary
5.26.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Getting to work: The effect of school-year employment on student outcomes

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Calls are rising for America’s aging high-school model to modernize, in part by accommodating work experience through hands-on internships or actual employment for students.

Commentary
5.26.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Will every high schooler soon have a 4.0?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

Scholars and testing companies have been following grade inflation for decades. The first ACT study on the topic dates to the mid-1990s, while researchers have used SAT data to study grade inflation since the 1970s.

Commentary
5.19.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The excellence gap and underrepresentation at America’s most selective universities

Michael J. Petrilli

America’s education system suffers from a variety of “excellence gaps”—sharp disparities in performance by race and class at the highest levels of academic achievement. These gaps explain why college administrators turn to various forms of affirmative action in order to create freshmen classes that more closely represent the nation’s diversity—actions that may soon be declared unconstitutional. But when do these gaps start?

Commentary
5.19.2022
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Evidence, struggling math students, and California’s 2022 math framework

Tom Loveless

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.

Commentary
5.19.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What does teacher certification contribute to outcomes for students with disabilities?

Jeff Murray

Reams of research have reported contradictory outcomes for students with disabilities (SWDs) who are taught in general education classrooms alongside their non-disabled peers versus learning in settings with only SWDs. A new report focuses on teacher certification as a possible mechanism to explain the variations in outcomes.

Commentary
5.19.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

More data on the impact of remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic

Julia Wolf

Throughout the pandemic, we encountered much speculation about the impact that remote learning would have on student performance. The expected learning loss was a concern not just of American parents and educators, but of citizens all around the world.

Commentary
5.12.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and choices for NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

NAEP is by far the country’s most important source of information on student achievement, achievement gaps and so much more, even though it’s invisible to most Americans. Yet NAEP is far from perfect—and could do so much more than it does. It’s time to wrestle with its challenges, shortcomings, and possible future scenarios.

Undefined
5.11.2022
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
5.11.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for charter schools is stronger than ever

The Education Gadfly

Just over thirty years ago, the first public charter school law was passed in Minnesota. One year later, City Academy Charter School opened its doors in St. Paul. The charter sector now boasts more than 7,700 schools serving over 3.4 million students nationwide.

Commentary
5.5.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

No, social and emotional learning is not a “Trojan horse” for CRT

Robert Pondiscio

Last week came news that more than 40 percent of math textbooks submitted for review in Florida were deemed incompatible with state standards or contained “prohibited topics” including reference

Robert Pondiscio editorial 4-21-22 image
Commentary
4.21.2022
Teachers & School Leaders

Return of the Survey of the American Teacher provides data, raises questions

Robert Pondiscio

Veteran education watchers may remember the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, which for more than a quarter century took the temperature of the nation’s teaching workforce on issues pertaining to job satisfaction, pay, and prestige.

Robert Pondiscio editorial 4-21-22 image
Mike Antonucci editorial image 4-21-22
Commentary
4.21.2022
Teachers & School Leaders

Violence against teachers prompts calls for increased security

Mike Antonucci

In-person instruction has been restored everywhere in the United States, and the nation’s schools once again find themselves dealing with the age-old battle of children against authority—although now it is frequently erupting into violence and threats against teachers.

Mike Antonucci editorial image 4-21-22
Commentary
4.7.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Polish schools in plague and war: A dispatch from the education front lines

Terry Ryan

Covid-19 and the miseries it caused families, children, and educators around the world over the last two years seems finally to be ebbing. But in Poland where I am writing this, the plague has been followed by a brutal and senseless war in neighboring Ukraine.

Commentary
4.7.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Biden goes all in on the teachers unions’ agenda

Dale Chu

With Democrats facing trouble in the midterm elections, the Biden administration has inexplicably decided to try to stave off disaster by doubling down on the teachers unions’ hoary anti-reform agenda. One example is its not-so-sneak attack on charter schools in the form of execrable regulations that could bring charter growth to a standstill. But it’s not the only one.

Commentary
4.7.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Denver doesn’t spell doom for portfolio-style reform

Paul T. Hill

Last week, Chester Finn used a recent vote of Denver’s anti-reform school board to make three points: first, that the “portfolio” reform there—based on school autonomy, family choice, and chartering out schools where kids aren’t learning—is finished; second, that Denver’s reversal predicts doom elsewhere for complex reform initiatives meant to transform the ways whole public systems operate; an

Commentary
4.7.2022
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

More reform lessons from Denver

Susan Miller, Tom Coyne

After living through the transformation of K–12 education in Alberta, Canada, we moved from Calgary to Colorado in 2010. Since then, we have watched the Denver Public Schools story unfold from next door in Jefferson County.

Commentary
4.7.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How a summer job may help improve school outcomes

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

The influence of out-of-school activities such as sports and clubs on school outcomes has been an enduring