Vaccine-making’s lessons for high-dosage tutoring: Part I
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
At a virtual town hall in Brooklyn about how the pandemic will change admissions to high-performing selective schools, New York City officials got a lecture on systemic racism.
As our country grapples with racial injustice, there are persistent calls to diversify elite institutions at all levels, from corporate and foundation boards to law schools and medical schools to undergraduate programs. All good.
A recent study from Brown University’s Matthew A. Kraft and John P. Papay and Harvard’s Olivia L. Chi uses nine years of administrative data from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina to examine teacher improvement through the lens of principal evaluations.
On this week’s podcast, Fordham’s Checker Finn joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the growing, misguided war on selective-admissions
Before the coming of the pandemic, pre-K was a hot topic.
After the release of a new study I co-authored for the Thomas B.
Two big public-school systems in the D.C. area are on the verge of letting their zeal for equity and racial justice lead to consequences they may end up regretting. Fairfax County, which operates one of America’s best known and most esteemed “exam schools,” is may use a lottery, rather than test scores and other quality measures, for admissions. And Loudoun County is considering revising its rules for “professional conduct” by school staff to punish employees—teachers included—in truly Orwellian ways.
Proponents of test-based accountability generally believe that robust systems—those that set high bars for achieving success, generate copious and transparent data, and impose substantive awards or consequences based on progress (or lack thereof)—are enough to boost student achievement. Another school of thought posits that more funding to schools does likewise.
If America is serious about wanting kids to become better readers, our elementary schools need to spend more time teaching social studies rather than doubling-down on “reading comprehension.” This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the key takeaway from our new study. It’s also especially important for girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.
A new study published last week by Fordham, Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, suggests that to become better readers, elementary students should spend more time on social studies.
On this week’s podcast, Aaron Daly, COO of Brooklyn Laboratory Chart
Ohio legislators recently introduced Senate Bill 358, which proposes to cancel all state testing scheduled for spring 2021. The provision calling for the cancellation of state exams would only go into effect if the state receives an assessment waiver from the U.S.
Michael Petrilli has written that, “when it comes to education, conservatives should stand for excellence.” So should liberals, and I am a longtime activist on the Democrats’ left wing.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused plenty of problems in education, but a recently published study offers a sliver of good news for schools that—despite recent budget constraints—may soon find themselves in need of additional teachers to make social distancing feasible
Academic acceleration—either through grade skipping or advanced coursework such as Advanced Placement or early college access—is a longstanding practice for primary and secondary students who show above average ability for their age and grade level.
Equity need not be pitted against excellence. But let’s not pretend there are no trade-offs. The two are in tension, if not actual conflict, in many matters of policy and practice. We can assume that progressives will always take the “equity” side. So if conservatives don’t make excellence a priority—be it in matters organizational, academic, or related to extracurricular activities and other nonacademic pursuits—nobody will.
Perhaps it is only when we lose something that we realize its true value. A recent study by Matthew Kraft and Manuel Monti-Nussbaum finds that in-person teaching time in the classroom—now a precious commodity that many students and teachers won’t experience again for a while—was not properly safeguarded when we had it.
Between learning loss from an interrupted spring semester and new pandemic-related financial struggles that families are facing, many students are canceling, delaying, or changing their plans to enroll in higher education.
In the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s latest report, I was shocked to read that, “less than a third of reviewed district reopening plans reference intervention strategies to help targeted students make up learning they may have lost during spring or summer.”
On this week’s podcast, Erin Einhorn, a national reporter for NBC News, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk about her recent
As we prepare to reopen our schools, school administrators must examine our back-to-school rituals and upgrade plans for re-entry to account for the challenges presented by Covid-19. In particular, schools must create and clearly communicate the processes for school drop-off and arrival that support social distancing and wellness measures.
Students who have the kinds of talent scientists and engineers need to solve problems by visualizing how objects could be rotated, combined or changed in three dimensions often struggle at school.
If we are to survive the stress and uncertainty of this year’s school reopenings, we are going to have to learn how to lead from a place of grace and empathy. None of this is easy. There are not any good, let alone perfect, options. The conditions on the ground are changing daily, and the personal circumstances of each family—whether teacher or student—are different.
The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the inequities that have long existed in K–12 education system.
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith discuss whether and how schools should reopen in the fall.
David Steiner:
David Brooks has long been a stalwart supporter of education reform, both the choice-and-charters flavor and the testing-and-accountability variety.
As I noted in a recent post, attitudes toward advanced education are cyclical. From gifted education to talent development programs, from honors classes to AP, we have experienced a largely positive stretch of media attention and state-level policy gains.
As national unrest builds along with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others at the hands of police officers, people worldwide are responding with marches, protests, critical reflection, and grief. Right now, the Black Lives Matter movement rages on.