Last week, Chris Cerf stepped down after three extraordinarily successful years as New Jersey’s commissioner of education. Education observers in the Garden State and beyond will remember his tenure for its major initiatives.
Having observed, and occasionally weighed in on, the Common Core standards debates, I’m sure of one thing: no one is paying enough attention to the good work educators across the country are doing as they attempt to b
The recently released Fordham report on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards includes the work of Washoe County, my district.
By now, education observers are aware of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s incursion on the Big Apple’s charter sector.
Note: This post is part of our series, "Netflix Academy: The best educational videos available for streaming." Be sure to check out our previous Netflix Academy posts on&n
State-funded voucher programs have stoked political controversy, culture clashes, and pitched court battles. In Ohio, vouchers (aka "scholarships") enable students without access to a good public school--or limited means--to attend a private school.
State-funded voucher programs have stoked political controversy, culture clashes, and pitched court battles. In Ohio, vouchers (aka "scholarships") enable students without access to a good public school--or limited means--to attend a private school.
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has emerged as one of the nation’s staunchest proponents of charter-school quality.
State-funded voucher programs have stoked political controversy, culture clashes, and pitched court battles. In Ohio, vouchers (aka "scholarships") enable students without access to a good public school--or limited means--to attend a private school.
The K–12 education world brims with debates and dichotomies that get us into all manner of needless quarrels and cul-de-sacs, thus messing up every reform initiative and retarding progress.
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
The Obama administration has just released its 2015 budget proposal. Here are its most notable K-12 edu-features.
Discussions about current education-reform efforts are typically focused on three separate topics: the Common Core standards, the new tests, and the curriculum. The alignment among the three seems to receive little attention—though it is a critical matter, as the degree of alignment will determine the validity of student test scores.
As legislative sessions across the country continue to wind down, it's worth keeping tabs on some of the big private-school-choice proposals still under consideration.
Ohio is facing a potential “storm” in relation to the reading success of its third grade students. It’s critical that parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers stay calm and remind themselves how important reading is to a child's long-term success.
There are strong calls for a Renaissance in vocational education in Ohio. Here's what we think.
A brief look at how accountability options for virtual schools can be strengthened.
I started teaching seven years ago, and I have worked in four different schools in three different states. I’ve always sought schools and environments with higher standards for what students should know and be able to do, as well as higher expectations for what teachers can accomplish.
How well do existing pension plans serve charter and urban teachers? The unsurprising answer: not well. At all. Economist Cory Koedel and his colleagues study teacher-pension plans in Missouri, which has three teacher pension plans—Kansas City Public Schools (which covers 3 percent of Missouri teachers), the Public School Retirement System for the City of St.
As the debate over education reforms like the Common Core rage across the country, policy makers, advocates, pundits, and wonks clamor to have their views heard. In the din, the voices of teachers—upon whose shoulders the success of education reform ultimately lies—are sometimes drowned out.
Rationalizing America’s lackluster academic performance is something of a cottage industry. One of the most popular ways people explain away our low test scores is to claim that they don’t matter much anyway. “Let others have the higher test scores.
On February 18, the Indiana Department of Education released the first public draft of a set of new K–12 expectations for English language arts and math.
Note: This post is part of our series, "Netflix Academy: The best educational videos available for streaming." Be sure to check out our previous Netflix Academy posts on
The last year has found critics and advocates of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) duking it out in the political arena. That a common set of high expectations for K–12 students would catalyze such fierce fisticuffs reminds us of both the ugliness and beauty of democracy.
Which state ranks last of the fifty in fourth-grade math on the NAEP, last in eighth-grade r
by Katie Cristol and Brinton S. Ramsey Foreword by Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli
