The Education Gadfly Show: Another reason for more school autonomy
On this week’s podcast, David Osborne, director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, joins Checker
On this week’s podcast, David Osborne, director of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, joins Checker
In the first chapter of their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that a distinctive feature of many modern, wealthy cultures is a broadened impulse to protect young people from difficulties.
Five years ago, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) launched an initiative called “Connected Education” in an effort to boost the number of students able to partake of Advanced Placement (AP) courses. More students meant more courses could be offered, but fiscal and personnel constraints prohibited them being offered in the traditional manner.
A new survey of parents and school board members finds significant resistance, particularly among the latter group, to many of the controversial claims and ideas advanced by
Few parents are thrilled at the prospect of more distance learning in the fall, but a majority of adults worry that school reopening will worsen the pandemic. Parents and educators are also rightly concerned about children falling behind academically, as well as the social and emotional consequences of prolonged isolation from peers and other adults. For advice on how to balance all this, we turned to two school-system leaders, Juan Cabrera and Eva Moskowitz.
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.
Tutoring can be pricey. But it works. Here’s what you need to know.
Discussions about the power of literacy are ceaseless.
On this week’s podcast, Rob Kremer, director of government relations at Pearson, owner of Connections Academy, joins Mike Petrilli and Dav
Almost exactly twenty years ago, in August 2000, CBS News’s 60 Minutes aired a segment about a pair of charter schools—one in the South Bronx; another in Houston, Texas—founded by a duo of twenty-something White male teachers. To see it now is to catch a time capsule glimpse of a more earnest and hopeful time.
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.
As state and district leaders face the challenges posed by Covid-19, safely reopening schools within the current budgets is first, second, and third on their priority list.
The National Assessment Governing Board is in the middle of an enormous effort to revamp its framework for assessing reading, a central element of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Frameworks set forth what is to be assessed and how that’s to be done. Changing them is harder than moving a cemetery, requiring years of lead time, costing much money, and entailing endless palaver among people with divergent views of the subject. Unfortunately, in the proposed set of revisions, the bad outweighs the good by a considerable margin
On this week’s podcast, Checker Finn and David Griffith discuss the flawed effort to revamp NAEP’s reading framework.
Given its makeup, it’s no surprise that the task force report trots out the oft-refuted canard that charter schools “undermine” traditional schools. The National Education Association (NEA) used identical language in a 2017 policy statement pledging “forceful support” for limiting charter schools. “The growth of charters has undermined local public schools and communities, without producing any overall increase in student learning and growth,” the NEA claimed.
Figuring out how to safely reopen schools this fall was sure to be a hugely complicated logistical and academic challenge.
With all of the sniping back and forth about if or how schools will reopen this fall, the outlook for the coming school year is looking rather grim. Many school districts find themselves in a political pressure cooker, full of tensions about to bubble over as the resumption of school draws nearer. Educators remain caught in the tug of war between economists and epidemiologists.
There is a reason we’re told to respect our elders. It’s bracing and edifying to listen to voices of wisdom and experience. Those whose time grows short are compelled to speak clearly and directly. Thomas Sowell is one such voice.
There is a growing body of research that evaluates the effectiveness of supports for college students in helping the
Last month, Fordham released a detailed review of Florida’s latest K–12 academic standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.
The Fordham Institute recently published an article called “Let’s rebuild special education when schools reopen,” by Anne Delfosse and Miriam Kurtzig Freedman. Reading it prompted both of us to offer our own thoughts, drawn from experience.
As the start of the school year rushes toward us, teachers across America are girding themselves for their new role as “essential workers” during a persistent pandemic. But one group of teachers has it particularly rough: U.S. history instructors, who must also perform their duties during a full-scale culture war over how to tell the American story, especially on the central issue of race. As tempting as it may be, they shouldn’t sidestep controversies or smooth the edges with bland, antiseptic readings. This would lead only to bored, disengaged students, and contribute to our woeful knowledge of our nation’s history.
Seventeen long years ago, I urged the creation of “religious charter schools,” either encouraging their start from scratch or—more realistically—allowing extant Catholic and other faith-based schools to convert to charter status
On this week’s podcast, Mora Segal, CEO of Achievement Network, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the organization’s lat
Pass-fail ratings in schools are widespread this pandemic-stricken spring. But when “passing” denotes anything that’s not “failing,” what signifies excellence? What distinguishes a first-rate research paper or book review or math proof from one that’s barely serviceable? Where’s the recognition for a student whose class participation is well-prepared, attentive, thoughtful and articulate versus the pupil who yawns, smirks, whispers, peeks at his phone and responds to direct questions with surly, one-word answers? Grades surround us and we depend on them in one realm of our lives after another.
Today, Michigan became the first state to formally seek federal permission to suspend standardized testing in 2021 because of learning disruptions caused by the coronavirus.
Illness. Family emergencies. In-service training requirements. On average, classroom teachers in the U.S.
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli, Tran Le, Amber Northern, and David Griffith discuss Fordham’s new
Editor’s note: This article was first published by the Overdeck Family Foundation.