Consensus is rare in education, but if there’s broad agreement on anything pertaining to schooling, it’s on the need for students to develop critical thinking ability. But that’s where the consensus ends. Some perceive critical thinking as a content-neutral, generic skill that can be taught, practiced, and mastered in the abstract.
On this week’s podcast, Marc Porter Magee, CEO and founder of 50CAN, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss last month’s presidential debates, and the busy legislative sessions recently concluded in many states. On the Research Minute, Adam Tyner examines how socioeconomic status affects students’ growth mindsets.
A designation of special needs for a K–12 student can generate a sigh of relief from some parents and a howl of outrage from others. Such a designation can also be the basis of a successful outcome for some students and the beginning of a long struggle for others to attain proper supports.
Pay attention! The times they are a ‘changing as we move beyond special education as we’ve known it for forty-plus years. In his courageous, thought-provoking piece, Kalman R.
At the end of May, the College Board released a study about an inexpensive intervention that held the promise of increasing the number of high-achieving, low-income high school students who attended more selective colleges, where re
A new study of North Carolina public schools finds that black students in charter schools are more likely to have black teachers than their regular public school counterparts, and that the positive
Legendary actress Meryl Streep recently garnered a considerable amount of media attention during a Vanity Fair panel about the second season of HBO’s series “Big Little Lies.” Much to the surprise of many, Streep was highly critical of the phrase “toxic masculinity,” asserting tha
Angélica Infante-Green did not pull any punches when answering questions about a devastating report released yesterday by Johns Hopkins University Institute for Education Policy.
U.S. student outcomes improved significantly from the late 1990s until the onset of the Great Recession, especially in math, but also in reading, science, writing, U.S. history, and civics. Gains were greatest for lowest-achieving students, students of color, and at the fourth and eighth grade levels. But it's possible that a certain change outside of school explains at least some of these gains: the vastly improving condition of the nation’s poorest families.
When I started researching The B.A. Breakthrough, I had no idea that a college admissions scandal would erupt, exposing how rich families can game the system—shenanigans low-income families can’t play.
More than most fields and professions, education has a remarkably poor grasp of its own history. One of the reasons we are so susceptible to fads is because so few of us recognize that the Shiny New Thing is so often a recycled idea and a Ted Talk.
Social and emotional learning (SEL), which focuses on teaching children soft skills like self-awareness, self-discipline, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, has gained popularity, with advocates pushing for curriculum changes in schools.
On this week’s podcast, Elizabeth Albro, Commissioner of the IES National Center for Education Research, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss ways to increase the effect of evidence on classroom practice. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how charter schools in North Carolina affect long-term outcomes.
Alberta, Canada, is a fascinating model for educational improvement. Like the United States, the province jettisoned intellectual content in the early twentieth century, local property values drove school funding, and “public schooling” was narrowly defined.
When I was five years old and living in Decatur, IL, we were reached by a signal from a St. Louis television station, KPLR. If memory serves, color test bars gave way to programming at 6:00am each morning.
On this week’s podcast, Conor Williams, a fellow at the Century Foundation, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the leading Democratic presidential candidates’ education proposals. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how student academic growth data affects parents’ choice of districts.
There’s little doubt that math and reading outcomes strengthened dramatically for the lowest-performing students and for children of color from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession. But could these gains be seen in writing, science, and other areas, too? To answer that, this post looks at results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It finds, among other things, that at least at the fourth and eighth grade levels, progress in student achievement went well beyond reading and math.
I’m a fan and faithful listener of EconTalk, a podcast hosted by Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
A cottage industry of studies shows the critical relationship between having a same-race teacher and a host of short- and long- term educational outcomes, including test scores, expectations,
School quality can vary drastically within districts, so district-wide averages of ratings often leave out important information. This can cause problems for stakeholders, such as parents who use these data to choose communities in which to live. But just as individual school grades vary, the range of good versus bad schools may be substantially larger in some districts than in others.
Teach For America (TFA) has been recruiting and placing college graduates into underserved classrooms since 1989. Throughout this thirty-year tenure, the program’s teacher-training methods and recruitment strategies have evolved.
In a full employment economy, there are many options for purpose-driven, socially astute, and smart people.
Last fall, Jonathan Plucker and I lauded Montgomery County, Maryland, for improving and expanding its elementary school programs for the “highly gifted,” especially for minority students.
Career technical education (CTE) programs at community colleges are a promising way to prepare the workforce for jobs in growing occupations. But the programs with the best outcomes for students often have limited capacity or very low completion rates. One solution: Start students on a path towards high-returns fields early, through efforts such as high school CTE programs.
The most demonized game in the annals of grade school physical education is back in the news.
Twenty years ago, conservative ideas were gaining traction in K–12 education.
This is the first in a series of summer posts that will examine whether America’s schools have, despite charges to the contrary, improved over the past quarter-century of reform. That is a big, daunting question—but there’s no doubt that student outcomes have improved during the education reform era.
Last week, we at Fordham released a new study called Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools.
On this week’s podcast, Josh Boots, Founder and Executive Director of EmpowerK12, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss how high-performing schools use all sorts of data—and not just test scores—to improve their instruction and outcomes. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines recent increases in college completion rates.
