The SAT and ACT hold a controversial place in American education. This brief challenges the notion that college admissions exams drive inequities in college admissions and higher education attainment, as well as worsen broader social disparities.
What does it mean to “prepare young people for adult work,” an oft-used saying to describe one of schooling’s primary goals? Though it surely means that we prepare them to earn a living and move up the income ladder, work is more than a financial way to provide for ourselves and those we love.
In the fast-moving, highly energized world of school choice and parent-empowerment advocacy, education savings accounts are the hottest thing since vouchers, maybe even hotter. Ten states already have them in some form, and a dozen more legislatures are weighing bills to create them. But Finn is wary, particularly of the free-swinging, almost-anything-goes version known as “universal” ESAs.
Ready or not, the 2024 race for president is already in full swing. Like bad plastic surgery, this ordeal will be ugly and expensive.
The school shooting in Newport News, Virginia, involving a six-year-old who shot his teacher, fell from the headlines before we could learn our lesson from it.
“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.
A state court has declared Pennsylvania’s school-funding system to be unconstitutional due to its reliance on property taxes.
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?
A new study makes a compelling case that there is racial bias in K-12 student referrals and discipline, although socio-economic status could account for much of the disparities.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast,
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.
From 2015 to 2018, the start of spring meant I could expect to hear from parents across Florida. At the time, I worked for Step Up Students, the Florida-based organization that administers the nation’s largest education scholarship (i.e., voucher) program. My job was not in customer service. I was the editor of a blog focused on school choice issues.
So many of our debates about paying for higher education hinge on conflicting views of what’s the taxpayer’s responsibility and what’s the recipient’s. These days, that’s also true of pre-schooling and it also arises, albeit in different form, when we fight over vouchers, tax credits, ESAs and such. Is it society’s responsibility to pay for private schooling or is it the family’s?
Last week, two more states—Iowa and Utah—joined Arizona and West Virginia in adopting universal education savings accounts.
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
The pandemic changed what the American public wants from K–12 education.
Cheers Contrary to popular belief, gifted and talented programs have a negligible effect on racial segregation in schools. —Education Next Jeers
Most of the socio-economic gap in college enrollment, and all of the gender and racial gaps, can be explained by differences in academic preparation during K–12 schooling. —Brookings Institution Education Savings Accounts represent a shift from boosting student outcomes to empowering all parents.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rick Hess of the
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.
For the vast majority of America’s children, going to school has changed little from their parents’ generation, even their grandparents’: Where you live is where you learn, in a school run by your local public school district.
