Podcast
Career & Technical Education, Personalized Learning
The Education Gadfly Show: The link between location and income
This week’s podcast guest is John V.
Topics
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
What coronavirus has taught us about the digital divide
There’s a long list of policy problems we should have solved before a global pandemic turned almost everything into a crisis.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance
Four reasons Republicans should support aid for state and local governments
Conservatives are right to be leery of bailing out profligate state and local governments, especially for needs that bear little relationship to—and pre-date—the virus crisis and its economic consequences. A well-crafted bill would base the amount of funding for state and local governments upon an estimate of the actual costs and losses incurred as result of the pandemic. It cannot be a blank check to fund every item on a state’s wish list. But telling states to “make hard decisions” is not going to cut it.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Seven steps to sending elementary kids back to school and parents back to work
All over the country, states, districts, and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by our ever-changing yet imperfect understanding of the virus itself.
Commentary
Parents' demands for safe school reopenings
When the National Parents Union (NPU) met for the first time in New Orleans in January, things were just a little different. We knew we had a fight on our hands, but we never imagined what the next few months would bring.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Keeping the teacher-student feedback loop intact during distance learning
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education
What you make depends on where you live, not just whether you went to college
The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout has yielded yet another cautionary tale about the perils of entering the workforce with nothing but a high school diploma. But that doesn’t mean that everyone needs a four-year college degree, or that we should build our high schools around that singular mission. In many American cities, workers with associate degrees earn middle-class wages.
Commentary
Governance
The coronavirus campaign: How the VP contenders stack up on ed reform
With everything going on in the world, one can be forgiven for forgetting that we’re in the midst of an election year. But in 167 days, Americans will decide whether to give President Trump four more years. Joe Biden has essentially locked up the Democratic nomination, so the next big question is whom he will tap to be his running mate.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
On distance learning, Success Academy once again leads the way
In the summer of 2013, After New York’s adoption of new, more rigorous testing benchmarks under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, student test scores plummeted around the state, wiping out years of paper gains.
Report
Career & Technical Education
What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings Across States and Metropolitan Areas
Yes, what you make depends on what you know and what credentials you carry. But it also depends on where you live. That's what we find in our new report by John V. Winters. The first-of-its-kind analysis compares mean earnings for full-time workers with different levels of education in all 50 states and D.C., over 100 metro areas, and rural America. Read it to learn more.
Commentary
NEW REPORT: What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings across States and Metropolitan Areas
Yes, what you make depends on what you know and what credentials you carry. But it also depends on where you live. That's what we find in our new report by John V. Winters. The first-of-its-kind analysis compares mean earnings for full-time workers with different levels of education in all 50 states and D.C., over 100 metro areas, and rural America. Read it to learn more.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Education Gadfly Show: Teacher to Chief: Pathways to Education Leadership
This week we're hosting "Teacher to Chief," a special episode with members of Chiefs for Chan
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning
School discipline reform: A deep dive into the research
In January, we had the pleasure of featuring Matthew Steinberg, associate professor of education policy at George Mason University, on the Education Gadfly Show podcast. This episode was the second installment of our Research Deep Dive series, and our big topic of the day was school discipline reform.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
As we seek to redesign K–12, let’s first transform teacher education
We are finally nearing the chasm. Two months ago, the nation was rightly applauding K–12 educators for having to make the adjustment to a virtual classroom with almost no warning or planning.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Love (of a veteran teacher) in the time of coronavirus
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A conservative agenda for school board members
Those best positioned to push back against much of the nonsense that courses through our schools are school board members. And those interested in effecting positive change should adopt a three-part agenda: let our schools refocus on preparing children for informed citizenship; restore character, virtue, and morality to the head of the education table; and build an education system that confers dignity, respect, and opportunity upon every youngster.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Geography: The unloved stepchild of American education
Many urgent challenges await the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and its governing board (NAGB) in the coming months, including whether the scheduled biennial testing of reading and math in grades four and eight is feasible during the 2020–21 school year.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
It took a teacher to make a decent movie about a teacher
Few vocations have suffered more in the hands of Hollywood mythmakers than teaching. This is curious. Schools offer a familiar and fertile setting, and teaching is inspiring, aspirational work. There is rich potential for drama in student backstories or in a good teacher’s ability to change a child’s life trajectory.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction
The value proposition: On-the-job skills versus bachelor’s degrees
A skills gap occurs when the demand for a skilled workforce increases faster than the supply of workers with those skills. As the U.S. economy recovered from the 2008 Great Recession, that gap was evident in many economic sectors.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
The Education Gadfly Show: What Americans think about schools’ response to the COVID crisis
On this week’s podcast, Paul DiPerna, vice president of research and innovation at EdChoice, joins Mike Petrilli and D
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Forge emotional connections with students before pursuing lessons online
Editor’s note: This essay was first published by Ed Source. As Californians adjust to a restricted and socially distant life amid the coronavirus pandemic, each of us is forced to refocus on what is most important in our lives.
Commentary
The impact of school closures: A deep dive into the research
A few weeks ago, the Fordham Institute had Deven Carlson, assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, as our special guest on the Education Gadfly Show podcast. We were curious about the impacts of school closures—the ones due to poor performance or under-enrollment, not COVID-19—both on students whose schools are shuttered and on their new schoolmates.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
A self-reflection tool for distance learners
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing
Denver’s ambitious reimagination of accountability
Denver Public Schools (DPS) has long prided itself on being ahead of the curve when it comes to education reform. It was one of the first major urban districts in the country to negotiate a pay-for-performance system for its teachers in 2005.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Hard questions for building leaders to re-open schools
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Providing teachers with quality materials that they're trained to use is critical as schools prepare for the fall
The last time I saw my third grade reading students was more than 40 days ago. Like most schools across the country, ours closed its doors as a safety measure to help slow the spread of COVID-19. And like most schools and districts, we faced the challenge of how to ensure our students continued to learn when they could no longer be inside a classroom.
Commentary
To reopen our economy, we need to reopen our childcare centers. But they need help.
Early childhood care providers are heroes. On a regular day, they create loving, nurturing, and educational environments for our youngest, whose brains are developing more in this short period than they will at any other time in their life.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
District management teams: Meeting the COVID-19 challenge
The coronavirus pandemic has confronted school district management teams with four unprecedented challenges:
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
When it comes to catching kids up, let’s stop with the generalities
The complicated matter of how to help students make up ground when they return to school has two main camps. One wants every student to master key skills before moving on, and the flexibility for teachers to go back and spend time filling in the gaps. The other camp wants teachers to spend most of their time remaining on pace with grade-level material. There’s a way to help catch kids up that takes both into consideration.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing
Shooting the test-messenger to end accountability
This year’s holiday from federally-mandated end-of-year assessments in math and English language arts will undoubtedly embolden test haters to declare once again—and louder than ever—that we never needed those damned exams in the first place and that our schools and students are far better off without them.
