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Student-teaching experiences’ effect on teacher effectiveness and attrition
By Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.
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Increasing identification of gifted learners from diverse backgrounds
The differential representation of some student populations in advanced academic programming has long been recognized as a glaring weakness of gifted education practice.
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Charter Schools
School choice: The end of the beginning
I’ve dedicated a big part of my career to expanding school choice. I think it’s the right thing to do for kids, families, educators, neighborhoods, civil society, and much else. In fact, I’m convinced that years from now, students of history will be scandalized to learn that we used to have a K–12 system defined by one government provider in each geographic area.
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ESSA
ESSA Accountability Design Competition: Meet the Judges
Under the newly enacted Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states now face the challenge of creating school accountability systems that can vastly improve upon the model required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
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Charter Schools
A guide for K–12 gardeners
Fordham’s exceptional study illuminates school choice in thirty cities and how it can improve nationwide. By Frederick M. Hess
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Charter Schools
Coming soon - Quality in Adversity: Lessons from Ohio's best charter schools
Listening to some of the most important voices in the charter school debate
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Charter Schools
Public private districts and open enrollment
Many of Ohio's best districts are closed to open enrollment
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In 2016, every week is School Choice Week
If it isn’t already clear, let the Fordham Institute be the first one to state it outright: National School Choice Week 2016 has been a smashing success. The foundational principle of our movement—that every family deserves access to varied and excellent education options—has been expounded by an array of stirring speakers.
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Charter Schools
More than meets the eye: Ohio’s unimpressive charter law ranking
Looking behind the latest NAPCS rankings
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Curriculum & Instruction
Don't blame Common Core for publishers' lousy textbooks
If you’ve been keeping up with the Common Core scandal pages, you may be wondering who Dianne Barrow is.
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Is Ohio education fracturing the American Dream?
Two national reports grade Ohio poorly; signal trouble
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Curriculum & Instruction
NAEP computer-based writing pilot assessment: Fourth-grade performance
A new study from the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences provides results for fourth-grade students on the 2012 NAEP pilot computer-based writing assessment. The study asks whether fourth graders can fully demonstrate their writing ability on a computer and what factors are related to their writing performance on said computers.
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Charter Schools
Governing urban schools in the future: What’s facing Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
Urban school governance is a moving target, in part because it’s pretty clear that there’s no best way to handle it and in part because no change in a city’s arrangements ever works as well as its promoters hoped.
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Charter Schools
Rays of hope in the Sunshine State
On the same day that Jeb Bush unveiled his education agenda, thousands of families in his home state marched in Tallahassee to support some of the very school choice programs he championed in office.
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Free tuition is a needless windfall for affluent voters and state institutions
Nothing in life is truly free—but don’t tell that to dogmatic liberals and their pandering politicians, who would turn the first two years of college into a new universal entitlement. This idea has the same fatal flaws as universal preschool: a needless windfall for affluent voters and state institutions that does very little to help the needy.
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The presumption that individuals of one racial group are smarter than others is a myth and stereotype
The presumption that individuals of one racial group are smarter than others is a myth and stereotype. Even efforts in the early twentieth century to align high intelligence with the majority or white culture were refuted. The groundbreaking work of Martin D.
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Curriculum & Instruction
The Bush education plan
Education reform has been a specialty of Jeb Bush’s, and his track record on this issue in Florida is unbeatable. He knows the topic up, down, and sideways.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Ten things every American should know
Nearly thirty years ago, a then-obscure University of Virginia professor named E.D. Hirsch, Jr. set off a hot national debate with the publication of Cultural Literacy.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Has your child's elementary school stopped teaching history, science, and other content? Here's how to do it yourself
In a perfect world, all children would have access to an inspiring, well-rounded education, especially in pre-K and elementary school. They need a solid grounding in history, science, art, music, and literature.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Can parents help with math homework? YES
My wife and I both spend time working with our kids on their homework. We have also made a family tradition of “Saturday School,” a routine that my wife and I instituted a couple of years ago because our kids’ school was using a pre-Common Core math curriculum that wasn’t keeping pace with the standards.
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Curriculum & Instruction
A fair shot at opportunity
Editor's note: This is the first in a series of blog posts that will be collaboratively published every Wednesday by the National Association for Gifted Children and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Each post in the series will exist both here on Flypaper and on the NAGC Blog.
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AP at scale: Public school students in Advanced Placement
The expansion of the Advanced Placement program, on its face, is one of the great feel-good stories of education in my lifetime. Instead of being relegated to a boutique résumé item on the college applications of America’s most fortunate high schoolers, AP has broadened access to its more rigorous curriculum to kids across the country.
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Quality Counts 2016
This year marks the twentieth edition of Education Week’s annual “Quality Counts” report, but not much has changed from the nineteenth—or other editions of recent vintage. Massachusetts is still the tops—with a handsome 86.8 out of a possible hundred points—and the nation’s only B-plus state for education. Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont are next in line, each earning a B.
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Charter Schools
Court watching
The ink is dry on the bill, the interest groups are mollified, and the lobbyists have made the first payments on their tastefully appointed condominiums. Now that the Every Student Achieves Act has become the law of the land, it’s time to examine its implications for our federal education bureaucracy.