Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
The Education Gadfly Show #782: Whatever you do, don’t call it social and emotional learning
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: August 12, 2021
The data from North Carolina schools shows that in-person learning is more effective—and can be safe with masking and vaccination, regardless of community infection rates.
Report
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How to Sell SEL: Parents and the Politics of Social-Emotional Learning
This report examines parents’ opinions on SEL and pitfalls in communicating about it. It finds overwhelming support for the essence of SEL and its place in schools, but differences by political party and challenges in getting the terminology right.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
“Public education sucks” is a weak argument for school choice
I’ve long believed the best argument for school choice is to turn up the lights on what is possible when there’s room for a wide variety of schools, curricula, and cultures. Call it the When Harry Met Sally model.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Groundhog Day for school discipline
On June 4, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights asked for information that would help it “support schools in addressing disparities and eliminating discrimination in school discipline and fostering positive and inclusive school climates,” suggesting that something resembling the Obama-era discipline guidance may be reinstated in the near future.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The case for partisan school board elections
This November, Americans will cast their votes in thousands of local school board races. The stakes couldn’t be higher. These governing bodies will decide how public schools handle hot-button issues like masking requirements and critical race theory.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Busting the belief gap via regular student assessment
At its simplest, the belief gap is the gulf between what students can accomplish and what others—particularly teachers—believe they can achieve. It is especially pernicious when beliefs around academic competency are fueled by extraneous information such as socioeconomic status, race, or gender.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Five ideas for recruiting and retaining more Black and Hispanic teachers
Because of how Covid-19 has devastated the U.S. education system, many see this time as a unique opportunity to galvanize state and local education systems to enact large-scale changes. Bellwether Education Partners believes that one such transformation should be how state and local education agencies recruit and retain Black and Hispanic teachers.
Podcast
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance
The Education Gadfly Show #781: The House Democrats’ attack on charter schools
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: August 5, 2021
There’s a broad “coalition of the pissed-off” rising in many cities that’s recalling school board members for pursuing political agendas instead of student needs. It’s likely to shape this election cycle.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
We’re moving toward a more student-focused, parent-directed, pluralistic K–12 system
“Never in my lifetime have so many parents been so eager for so much education change.” So said longtime pollster Frank Luntz after surveying 1,000 public and private school parents on how the pandemic affected their view of schools.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Districts are failing special-needs students. School choice is helping.
Public schools have long failed to serve adequately students with disabilities, but school closures, disastrous for the millions of children with special needs, may finally encourage a critical mass of parents to do something about it.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Remote instruction is to blame for plummeting test scores
Texas recently became the first state to release state test score data since the pandemic hit.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice
Biden’s anticompetitive moves on charters and choice
Earlier this month, President Biden issued a sweeping executive order encouraging federal agencies to undertake a series of initiatives aimed at increasing competition in the U.S. economy. But there’s a mismatch between his approach to competition in the private sector and his support for monopoly when it comes to public education.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
2.7 cheers for the NAEP Reading Framework
Gadfly habitues have seen me grump, criticize, lament and recently brighten over the protract
Commentary
Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders
Charter school teachers are teachers, too
I was excited to meet a fellow high school teacher at a neighborhood potluck, but when she found out I worked at a charter school, she immediately said, “I don’t support charter schools.”
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How well do public schools in large cities overcome the effects of poverty and other barriers?
A recently released report by the Council of the Great City Schools seeks to determine whether urban public schools—including charters—are succeeding in their efforts to mitigate the effects of poverty and other educational barriers.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How do suspensions affect classroom learning?
A recent study in the journal Education Finance and Policy uses quarterly achievement and discipline data on nearly 16,000 seventh through eleventh grade students in an inner-ring suburban California school district to estimate the effect of suspensions on the English language arts and math achievement of non-suspended classmates.
Podcast
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: July 29, 2021
Americans used to flock to California to find opportunity, but now residents are leaving the state. It must reform its education system, especially by empowering parents and expanding choice for disadvantaged students, to keep the California Dream alive.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
What I learned about high school by running a one-week summer camp
In 2019, my friend Jal Mehta and his colleague Sarah Fine, thinking about whether high schools could adopt some of the best qualities of summer camp, wrote:
Commentary
Charter Schools, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Boston is punishing its Asian American community for its educational success
Boston just approved sweeping changes to the process by which students are admitted to its three highly-sought exam schools. The idea was to free up more seats for disadvantaged children, some of whom have long been underrepresented at the institutions. Yet in one important aspect, the plan may do exactly the opposite: It’s likely to significantly reduce the number of seats that go to low-income Asian American students.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Thinking requires knowledge
Editor’s note: This was first published by National Review.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Give a universal curriculum a chance: The NYC initiative holds promise
When Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter recently announced the city would spend more than $200 million dollars to develop a citywide reading and math curriculum, the smart and obvious take was
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Can investments in public libraries boost educational outcomes?
Myriad stories have emerged of non-school entities providing strong academic support to students during the pandemic disruptions of the past two school years.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Factors that help teaching candidates find and keep jobs
A recent CALDER working paper examined links between teacher preparation programs and the chance that their candidates will enter or remain in the public school system for their first two years post-graduation. Its findings can help school systems improve teacher retention—a problem that many districts face, especially those that mostly educate disadvantaged students.
Podcast