The presumption that individuals of one racial group are smarter than others is a myth and stereotype. Even efforts in the early twentieth century to align high intelligence with the majority or white culture were refuted. The groundbreaking work of Martin D.
Education reform has been a specialty of Jeb Bush’s, and his track record on this issue in Florida is unbeatable. He knows the topic up, down, and sideways.
Nearly thirty years ago, a then-obscure University of Virginia professor named E.D. Hirsch, Jr. set off a hot national debate with the publication of Cultural Literacy.
In a perfect world, all children would have access to an inspiring, well-rounded education, especially in pre-K and elementary school. They need a solid grounding in history, science, art, music, and literature.
My wife and I both spend time working with our kids on their homework. We have also made a family tradition of “Saturday School,” a routine that my wife and I instituted a couple of years ago because our kids’ school was using a pre-Common Core math curriculum that wasn’t keeping pace with the standards.
Editor's note: This is the first in a series of blog posts that will be collaboratively published every Wednesday by the National Association for Gifted Children and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Each post in the series will exist both here on Flypaper and on the NAGC Blog.
The Friedrichs case and the future of teacher unions, whether schools are asking too much of young students, debating the role of federal regulation under ESSA, and computers’ effect on the writing gap. Mike Petrilli and Robert Pondiscio cohost, and Amber Northern delivers the Research Minute.
The expansion of the Advanced Placement program, on its face, is one of the great feel-good stories of education in my lifetime. Instead of being relegated to a boutique résumé item on the college applications of America’s most fortunate high schoolers, AP has broadened access to its more rigorous curriculum to kids across the country.
This year marks the twentieth edition of Education Week’s annual “Quality Counts” report, but not much has changed from the nineteenth—or other editions of recent vintage. Massachusetts is still the tops—with a handsome 86.8 out of a possible hundred points—and the nation’s only B-plus state for education. Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont are next in line, each earning a B.
The ink is dry on the bill, the interest groups are mollified, and the lobbyists have made the first payments on their tastefully appointed condominiums. Now that the Every Student Achieves Act has become the law of the land, it’s time to examine its implications for our federal education bureaucracy.
Officials at the Department of Education have requested public comments by January 21 about areas in the new Every Student Succeeds Act where regulation might be “helpful or necessary.” My recommendation to the feds: Tread ver
Let’s just stop pussyfooting around and say it out loud: The “historic” peak in the country’s high school graduation rate is bullshit.
This week, teachers’ unions continued their battle over mandatory “agency fees” in the Supreme Court case Friedrichs v.
In a recent blog post, Jason Bedrick of the Cato Institute attributes the apparently troubling results of a recent study on Louisiana’s private school voucher program to the theory that “[r]egulations intended to guarantee quality might well have had the opposite effect.
Lessons from Ohio’s best charter schools
Tomorrow in Columbia, South Carolina, the Jack Kemp Foundation will receive a coterie of scholars, policy mavens, and politicos at its Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity.
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines how Louisiana’s statewide voucher program affects student achievement. The Pelican State expanded its program statewide in 2012; by 2014, twelve thousand students had applied for more than six thousand slots to attend 126 private schools.
I encountered a bit of advice this week that my dear mother would have welcomed during her brief and inglorious career as my pre-Algebra tutor: When it comes to assisting kids with their math assignments, parents can afford to do less.
Both ranking and grades have dropped for Ohio
The miseducation of Donald Trump voters, a brave and bold take on sex education, student pressure in a New Jersey district, and the effectiveness of school vouchers in Louisiana.
By Robert Pondiscio
I re-read about fifty major articles, blog posts, and other missives about ESSA over the break, since this written record will serve as the foundation for years of commentary and analysis. Below are the five major themes that jumped out (along with gobs of the supporting links).1. The diminished role of Uncle Sam in schools
As everyone knows, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)—the long-overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—was approved by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate and signed into law by the president in December.
Money to expand high-performing charters should not be jeopardized by bad actors
As 2015 was coming to a close, I compiled a list of my fifty favorite reads of the year. You can find them all here.
