Podcast
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Civility, democracy, and education
Most of our founding fathers believed that a democracy is only as good as its citizens, since democracy only flourishes with citizens who are capable of governing themselves. But we have lost our understanding of the connection between virtue, self-government, and democracy. Indeed, few students today learn anything about virtue, let alone see any connection between it and the fate of our republic.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Online courses and college degree completion
Students’ inability to enroll in required courses—due to capacity or scheduling constraints—can stymie progress toward a college degree. New findings published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis suggest that online courses can help keep students on track to college graduation.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Boosting the effectiveness of STEM role models
Providing relatable role models for young people is a guiding principle by which STEM practitioners hope to motivate scientists of the future and diversify their ranks. Conscious of the importance of this endeavor, New York University researchers Jessica Gladstone and Andrei Cimpian examined the literature on role modeling to identify strategies for maximizing its motivational impact.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Build Back Better’s risks on early childhood education are manageable and outweighed by the benefits
The funding system for early childhood education envisioned in Build Back Better is far superior to the one we have now. But as always in public policy, the transition from one condition to another is fraught with risks.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Education’s enduring love affair with “luxury beliefs”
The proof of a powerful idea is how well it sticks. Once you hear about it “you start to see it everywhere,” as Bari Weiss puts it. She was describing “luxury beliefs,” a phrase coined by Rob Henderson, an Air Force veteran and Ph.D.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Conservatives: Let’s focus on winning policy, not just winning politics
There’s been lots of jabber lately about what the upset win by Glenn Youngkin in the recent Virginia gubernatorial race means for education policy.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Proof that online credit recovery has been on the rise
Recent years have seen a move to eliminate homework and relax grading standards, and struggles by teachers and students to do their work during the pandemic have accelerated this trend. Some educators and commentators, however, fret that these new practices amount to lowering standards.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Education is progressive. Schools are conservative.
Editor’s note: This was first published by Newsweek.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Attacking gifted education is bad policy and bad politics
Education for high achievers has come under siege in blue cities and states as the national focus has shifted to racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. But such attacks, even when well-intentioned, are misguided. They target a problem’s symptom rather than its cause, and in doing so, harm students and defy parents.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching gratitude beyond Thanksgiving
Once a year, parents of young children can look forward to their kids coming home from school with turkeys drawn by hand and heartwarming lists of what they are grateful for, with loving parents and helpful teachers usually at the top of the list. This happens just before families pack up and travel to be together and give thanks for all the blessings of the year.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The centrality of instructional materials: My experience with Doug Lemov’s Reading Reconsidered Curriculum
I’m a rather dreadful cook. Nonetheless, in the summer, with easy access to farm-fresh vegetables and the internet’s profusion of recipes, my wan table occasionally turns into something resembling a feast. And this phenomenon works in reverse.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Redesigning early college credit to reach underserved students
In 2012, Tennessee lawmakers created the Statewide Dual-Credit program (SDC) to help more students earn college credit while completing high school.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The state of computer science education
In early November, the Code.org Advocacy Coalition, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance teamed up to release the 2021 State of Computer Science Education.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
Education Gadfly Show #797: Why debunked reading practices continue to spread
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What is virtue and why does it matter?
Contemporary education has become too technocratic and divorced from virtue. This is a disservice to students because it robs them of what a classical education provides: the tools students need to succeed, not just academically and professionally, but in the deep and abiding sense of being able to flourish as free and good human beings.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Effectively implementing social-emotional learning means getting the terminology right
Two charter networks, Uplift Education and Distinctive Schools, have provided models for supporting social-emotional learning (SEL) that other schools should emulate.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How media coverage of critical race theory misses the point
It is not a controversial statement to say that the debate over critical race theory in schools has shed more heat than light. This is not surprising. When a relatively obscure and arcane academic field suddenly becomes a high-profile political football, hotly debated on cable news shoutfests, it is almost certainly because it has been reduced to bumper-sticker simplicity.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
A descriptive look at the structure of gifted programs in Washington State
Gifted education has been a much-debated issue
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Reconnecting knowledge and virtue
Editor’s note: We're happy to introduce Jennifer Frey, who will be writing regularly for the Fordham Institute over the next year. She is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina, where she focuses on virtue ethics.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Lessons on protecting viewpoint diversity in classrooms
A story that became a flashpoint in national conversations around the effects of “CRT bans” is reaching its denouement: This past week, a hearing officer appointed to adjudicate the case ruled that the Sullivan County, Tennessee, school board was justified in
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Not everyone’s on board with turning schooling into therapy
Schools have been concerned with character formation and values since Plato sat with students under an olive tree. Today’s “social and emotional learning” is consistent with this age-old impulse. But in its form and function it can represent something different—and more worrisome—than its progenitors, especially when employed without full discussion of its priorities and methods.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The case for K–2 testing
Under federal law, states must assess students annually in reading and math in grades 3–8 and at least once during high school, as well as testing science once in elementary, middle, and high school.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How reopening decisions affected public school disenrollment
During the first full school year after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, enrollment in U.S. public schools fell by about 1.1 million students, or 2 percent of prior K–12 enrollment.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Students are interested in computer science, but many of them lack access
Results of a recent survey published by Amazon’s Future Engineer offshoot show several disconnects between the interests, experiences, and aspirations of U.S. students in regard to computer science.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Bill de Blasio is decimating gifted education in New York. Will Eric Adams save it?
Mayor de Blasio is axing New York City’s long-standing gifted education programs. He plans to replace them with something else, but his proposal is almost entirely wrong. Fortunately, Eric Adams, who’s almost certain to replace him in January, has a vision of gifted education that’s mostly right, and he’ll enter office in time to fix de Blasio’s blunders.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Seeking a constitutional shortcut to educational excellence
Do students have a right to a high-quality education? A proposed ballot initiative filed in California last Thursday says yes.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Sorry Edutopia, the research base on project-based learning remains weak
As one paper put it, there is a “paucity of robust research” on project-based learning. Yet in the ed-school world and in many journals and professional organizations, it’s often touted as a pedagogical gold standard.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How well do diverse-by-design charter schools work?
The persistence of racial segregation between and within school districts has motivated some in the school choice community to develop diverse-by-design charters (DBDCs), which are defined as schools without a 70 percent majority of students of any race or ethnicity, plus 30 to 70 percent low-income pupils.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How well are schools teaching disadvantaged students to read? In California, it depends where you live.
How do we know if a school district is doing one of its most basic jobs—teaching students to read? That’s one of the main questions the California Reading Coalition, which I helped organize earlier this year, set out to answer with the California Reading Report Card, released in September.
