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Displaying 421-444 of 444 results
Commentary
1.22.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Reader’s workshop: The science denial curriculum

Robert Pondiscio

I owe my education career to reader’s workshop, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and its founder Lucy Calkins. I started as a mid-career switcher with a two-year commitment to teach fifth grade in a South Bronx public school. Two things about my school are worth knowing: It was the lowest-performing school in New York City’s lowest-performing district.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

D.C. continues to improve its teacher evaluation system

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Amid all of the hullabaloo over teacher evaluations, fewer states are now using test scores to assess the quality of their teacher workforce.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Governance

School Improvement Grants worked well—at least in these four locales

Jessica Poiner

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 marked a massive federal investment in our schools, with more than $100 billion to shore up school systems in the face of the Great Recession. Along with that largesse came two grant programs meant to encourage reform with all of those resources: Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants (SIGs).

Commentary
1.17.2020
Governance

The real history of school desegregation, from 1954 to the present

R. Shep Melnick

One of the oddest features of the 2019–20 Democratic primary season has been the return of the busing issue. Half a century ago, it nearly tore the party apart. Judicially mandated reassignment of students to achieve racial balance proved to be the most unpopular policy since Prohibition, opposed by overwhelming majorities of white voters.

Commentary
1.17.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning

The top 10 EconTalk episodes on education

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

A few years ago, as I was wrapping up grad school (where my dissertation was about migrant workers in China, of all things), I came across a bunch of fascinating podcast episodes about education policy and school reform.

Commentary
1.16.2020
Governance

Weak board governance weakens K–12 performance

Tom Coyne

After spending most of my forty-year career working on organizational performance improvement, I have learned that some of the most important causes of poor performance are often the least visible.

Commentary
1.15.2020

The top 19 Fordham posts of 2019

Pedro Enamorado

2019 was quite a year for education reform. We saw many conversations about what conclusions to draw from NAEP scores, how to help accelerated learners, the ineffectiveness of restorative justice practices, and what it would take to bring research-based literacy instruction into our classrooms.

Commentary
1.15.2020
Advanced Education

Students of color lack access to advanced coursework, but there are solutions

Brandon L. Wright

Gifted education in the U.S. is too scarce and lacks substance, and that’s especially true for high achieving black and Latino children. A new report by the Education Trust concludes that this gap has “everything to do with policies, adult decisions, and practices and little to do with students’ academic abilities.”

Commentary
1.15.2020
Charter Schools, Governance

Fresh fuel for the charter school debate

Robert Pondiscio

A mere 6 percent of students are enrolled in charter schools nationwide, but there are sixteen cities in which at least one-third of public school students attend charters. Newark, New Jersey, is one of them.

Commentary
1.14.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Digging in the dirt for quality curriculum

Robert Pondiscio

A recent Fordham report finds that the quality of lessons that teachers get off the Internet is not very good. That’s no surprise but it obscures a bigger problem. If skilled practitioners in any profession feel compelled to scour the Internet for the basic tools of their trade that should concern us more than the quality of what they unearth. The very existence of a “vast curriculum bazaar” sends troubling signals about our general indifference to curriculum’s central role in learning, and our inattention to coherence and what gets taught.

Commentary
1.14.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Why don’t evidence-based practices take hold in schools?

Jeremy Noonan

Education Week’s recent report, Getting Reading Right, found that the most popular reading curricula in the country are not aligned with settled reading science.

Commentary
1.13.2020

In the Arena: A tribute to John White

David Coleman

It takes a lot of bravery to enter the arena; it takes even more to stay there. That’s what I admire so deeply about John White, Louisiana’s state superintendent of education.

Commentary
1.8.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Where R & D and school improvement meet, good things happen

Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham’s recent Moonshot for Kids competition, a collaboration with the Center for American Progress, highlighted the distinction between research and development and “school improvement.” They’re very different concepts. R & D is inherently top-down and school improvement mostly bottom-up. Yet bringing them into productive contact with one another is vital and might be the key to getting student outcomes moving in the right direction once again.

Commentary
1.8.2020

The power of the two-parent home is not a myth

Ian Rowe

Among several disturbing elements of Christina Cross's New York Times op-ed, “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” is the author’s seeming belief that unless growing up with married parents has the same effect on black children as on white youngsters, it is not worthy of endorsement.

Commentary
1.8.2020
Accountability & Testing

Those that live by the scores…

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

We are endlessly tempted—and strongly encouraged by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher—to infer policy guidance from PISA results. If a country’s score goes up, maybe other countries should emulate its education practices and priorities, as they surely must be what’s causing the improvement.

Commentary
1.7.2020
Evidence-Based Learning

Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part II

John A. Dues

There’s a large gap between the current state of education sector R & D and our aspirations for this research. As sectors, education and medicine have lots in common and analogies are often drawn between the disciplines. However, when it comes to evidence-based practices, there are stark differences between the two fields.

Commentary
1.6.2020
Evidence-Based Learning

Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part I

John A. Dues

To be clear, I am in favor of building a strong education R & D sector. However, it’s important to acknowledge the serious shortcomings of the current system. It is because of this current state that I am arguing that evidence-based practices don’t work. I’m making two claims.