A recent Annenberg working paper explores the effects of “natural” mentorships, which researchers define as voluntary and informal relationships between school personnel and students. It finds many benefits, especially for teens from low-income households.
Our recent study of states’ U.S. history and civics standards attracted some constructive criticism from both the left and the right. It was, after all, explicitly bipartisan. Here are our responses to four critiques.
There are good arguments to be made in favor of so-called critical race theory “bans” that have now been considered in some form by more than half of all US states.
For the last half-century, if you read the mission statement of virtually any education reform organization, you will find earnest language about closing the racial or class achievement gaps. Unfortunately, not only have gaps failed to narrow during this multi-decade obsession, overall achievement levels have also remained mostly static.
It is no exaggeration to say that very little good can likely come from a global pandemic, especially in the short term. And while the “term” of the current pandemic seems to lengthen every day, we are still firmly in the realm of the immediate when discussing impacts.
Researchers at NWEA have been using data from their MAP Growth assessments to predict and analyze learning losses since the start of the pandemic.
The past eighteen months have been some of the most tumultuous in the history of our nation. The twin pandemics of Covid-19 and social injustice have highlighted how today’s students face very different expectations than students encountered in previous generations.
At Partnership Schools, we believe that one thing that separates effective turnaround efforts from failed experiments is the ability of the leader to articulate a clear, coherent, and actionable vision for change.
“Hi. Welcome to the future. San Dimas, California. 2688.” Rufus, played by George Carlin, thus opened the American film classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure by explaining that, in the distant future, everything is great. The water, air, and even the dirt is clean.
Black Lives Matter protests, raging wildfires, a monumental election, and the global pandemic. As a seventeen-year-old growing up in Portland, Oregon, these past eighteen months have been the craziest I have ever experienced. Never would I have thought that I would essentially miss the entirety of my junior year of high school, forced into taking classes in a solely online environment.
As traumatized students return to classrooms, educators must be ready to handle worsened behavior issues, as some kids externalize the suffering they’ve been through and re-learn how to “do school.” Unfortunately, the discipline policies in place in many schools may exacerbate the challenge, potentially setting us up for disaster.
Parents across the country are up in arms over their school systems’ equity initiatives. To be clear, this is not “equity” as I came to define it when I started teaching nearly a quarter century ago.
In the early days of the pandemic, I was dismissive of “new normal” talk about Covid’s long-term impact on schooling. There was good reason for skepticism.
When it comes to career and technical education, there’s one state that seems to be getting things just about right: Connecticut.
Advocates for social and emotional learning (SEL) have pushed for schools to embrace the teaching of healthy life skills to students.
There is a heated debate going on among school choice advocates, in which the essential question is whether school choice is sufficient to reform American education. The civil disagreement belies a tension within the conservative movement writ large between the libertarians and the institutionalists. But it needn’t be a stalemate. A means to palliate the competing undercurrents can be found in our nation’s very founding.
Divisions about mask and vaccine mandates, in-person versus remote learning, student discipline, and racism and anti-racism in the curriculum will make it difficult for schools to serve anyone well this year.
We don’t usually picture science class when we think of social and emotional learning (SEL) or whatever we decide to call it, perhaps because scientists and engineers, unlike artists and writers, are often depicted as socially awkward or emotionally cold in popular media.
Reading on a computer screen became a must for millions of youngsters at the onset of pandemic-induced school closures when they lost access to classrooms and library books in school buildings.
In the early days of KIPP, or the Knowledge Is Power Program, and other networks of urban charter schools that drafted in its considerable wake, the highly prescriptive form of classroom management and teaching these schools pioneered was a subject of intense fascination and considerable optimism.
The biggest takeaway of our new report, "How to Sell SEL," is that most moms and dads want their children to acquire social and emotional skills and think that schools have a role in making that happen, even as they recognize the key role that they and other family members play. Read more.
In 2020, as we began to look at state U.S. history standards for the first time since 2011, I was concerned about what we would find.
The radio show Marketplace recently ran a piece asking, “Can changing home appraisal language help close the wealth gap?” The story examined structural racism in the housing market, specifically the wealth gap that persists as a result of Black and Hispanic families having t
In states as diverse as West Virginia, Florida,
Many teachers are paid according to salary schedules that reward seniority and degrees earned, the result of state laws that require school districts to follow this rigid compensation scheme.
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.
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.
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.
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.
