Displaying 2221-2250 of 17774 results
Commentary
11.26.2019
Teachers & School Leaders

A simple, low-cost way to improve the student teaching experience

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

The student teaching experience is a crash course in lesson planning, organization skills, and classroom management—and also in learning from and gelling with the teacher who is in charge of teaching you these things. That can be challenging, especially since cooperating teachers (CTs) are recruited in multiple ways, none of which is all that thoughtful or organized.

Commentary
11.21.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction

Social capital and schools’ opportunity equation

Bruno V. Manno

The words “American Dream” are shorthand for describing an individual’s pathway to opportunity and a successful life. Historically, K–12 schools provide young people with the foundational knowledge and skills they need for achieving success and the American Dream.

Commentary
11.21.2019
Advanced Education

Shining a light on bright students

Jonathan Plucker

Education is a great equalizer, yet our nation does not consistently support advanced students, especially low-income, and racial and language minority students. Too often, these students are drastically under-challenged in school, leading to boredom, underachievement and incalculable amounts of lost potential.

Commentary
11.20.2019
Curriculum & Instruction

Curriculum advocates: Prepare for a long, hard struggle

Robert Pondiscio

American education is taking a welcome and overdue interest in curriculum, but there’s no reason to expect that to result in sudden and dramatic gains in student achievement, especially for our lowest-performing children. Curriculum does not exist in isolation; schools are complex institutions with competing priorities, almost hard-wired to metabolize and neutralize any “fix.” Curriculum advocates should brace themselves for years of struggle, identify allies doing the actual work, and prepare to protect their flank.

Commentary
11.20.2019
Career & Technical Education

How high school CTE programs affect outcomes after graduation

Tran Le

A new study by CALDER investigates how career and technical education (CTE) course-taking affects college enrollment, employment, and continuation into specific vocational or academic programs in college.

Commentary
11.15.2019
Accountability & Testing

Can you have accountability without consequences?

Tom Coyne

When I read the article in The 74 by the Colorado Education Initiative’s Rebecca Holmes introducing a one-day conference that would bring together educators, families, and students to discuss what school quality is and

Commentary
11.14.2019

The worst news from NAEP

Max Eden

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Commentary
11.13.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

All 2019 Wonkathon submissions are in. Here’s what the wonks proposed.

Tran Le

The past decade’s shift to significantly higher academic standards and more rigorous assessments means that many more students are now far below grade-level expectations. In recent months and years, there’s been much debate about how best to help such students catch up.

Commentary
11.13.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning

The underwhelming effects of stereotype threat on standardized tests

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

Stereotype threat is when people inadvertently conform to negative stereotypes about a group they are in, for example their race or gender. A recent meta-analysis on the effects of stereotype threat has important implications for equity in the education system, the validity of standardized tests, and for teacher preparation.

Commentary
11.13.2019
Accountability & Testing, Governance

The states that are swimming against the NAEP tides

Michael J. Petrilli

The bad news from the latest Nation’s Report Card has us analysts wearing out our thesauruses. The good news is that a handful of states managed to make gains or stand pat on the assessment as their peers went backwards. Most noteworthy are D.C. and Mississippi, the only two locales where low achievers made gains. But several other states deserve credit for maintaining their scores in the face of adversity.

Commentary
11.12.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Driving learning for all students: A framework for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Bonnie Hain, Laura Slover

In our work with schools at CenterPoint, we often are asked to help design or support the implementation of research-based, high quality curriculum. Almost invariably, discussions with school leaders turn to the connections among and between the core curriculum and the tiered supports for students who are off grade level and struggling to advance.

Commentary
11.12.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The best way to help students who are several grade levels behind is to do a better job of following their progress, or lack of it, in the long term

Barbara Gottschalk

By the time struggling students reach middle school, it’s pretty obvious it took time for them to get several grade levels behind. It’s also obvious we have numerous ways to help these students. I’m guessing many other submissions to Wonkathon 2019 describe these strategies and approaches. What isn’t so obvious, however, is what’s causing some students to struggle.

Commentary
11.11.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

2019 WONKATHON RUNNER-UP: Teachers and curricula aren’t enough for below-grade-level students. They also require scalable strategies tailored to their needs.

Jessica Varevice

Editor’s note: This was the second-place submission, out of nineteen, to Fordham’s 2019 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question: “What’s the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind?”

Commentary
11.11.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Fostering teacher quality and expertise is the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind

Candice McQueen

Research and our personal experience tell us that the single most important factor affecting student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. No technology, tool, or other seemingly magic program can help students who are several grade levels behind get back on track and ultimately thrive.

Commentary
11.8.2019
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Governance

NAEP 2019: The terrible impact of the Great Recession

Michael J. Petrilli

In previous posts and in comments to the media, I’ve been making the case that the lingering effects of the Great Recession might partially explain the disappointing student achievement trends we’ve seen as of late, both on the Nation’s Report Card and on state assessments.

Commentary
11.8.2019
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

To ensure success for all students, state assessment makers must be learners, too

Jessica Baghian

In the last two decades, since states began implementing standardized testing under No Child Left Behind, there has been much debate about the value of those assessments. In Louisiana, where I serve as an Assistant Superintendent, we know measurement of student learning is critical, and tests hold the power to define the academic bar for all students.

Commentary
11.8.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

If we want to accelerate student learning, we need to redesign the school day

David Liben, Meredith Liben

Historically, literacy instruction in the United States privileges the privileged. It starts in the earliest grades, when less systematic approaches favored in many early literacy curricula privilege students who arrive at school more comfortable with language and books.

Commentary
11.7.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Engaging families, early and often, is the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind

Vidya Sundaram, Elisabeth O’Bryon

During this past summer, Family Engagement Lab facilitated a gathering of parents to discuss parent-teacher partnerships at their elementary school. During the discussion, the group moderator pulled us aside to let us know that a parent was there because her child had been retained a grade and she did not know why.

Commentary
11.6.2019
Accountability & Testing, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

High achievers are doing better on NAEP, and that’s good news. Period.

Brandon L. Wright

Most everyone has read by now about the dismal scores on our Nation’s Report Card, which again measured how fourth and eighth graders did in math and reading. Aside from fourth grade math, marks on the 2019 National Assessment of Education Progress were generally flat or down, especially for our lowest-performing children. One prominent official remarked that “the bottom fell out.” But the results among high achievers offer a bright spot that has been mostly overlooked and undercelebrated.

Commentary
11.6.2019
Charter Schools, Governance

Why reformers will miss Secretary DeVos when she’s gone

Dale Chu

With less than a year to go until the 2020 presidential election, Elizabeth Warren’s ascendancy to ostensible Democratic frontrunner, and the release of her voluminously noxious education proposal, I fell into a fever dream of the same stra

Commentary
11.6.2019
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

The relationship between racial discipline and achievement gaps

Tran Le

A new study published in AERA Open investigates whether and to what extent racial discipline gaps are associated with racial achievement gaps in grades three through eight in school districts across the U.S. It also examines if these relationships persist after accounting for differences across districts.