Education Gadfly Show #797: Why debunked reading practices continue to spread
Education leaders—principals, superintendents, state chiefs, philanthropy heads—make lots of decisions, and we exhort them to “use evidence” when they do. But we should stop doing that for at least four reasons.
America’s children are way behind because of the pandemic. And knowing this, parents and guardians have been justifiably expecting schools to rise to the occasion this fall. Instead, districts across the country have been shuttering this month following a wave of unexpected staff shortages. This is unequivocally a bad thing, but one that may have a silver lining: It helps increase momentum for school choice.
Contemporary education has become too technocratic and divorced from virtue. This is a disservice to students because it robs them of what a classical education provides: the tools students need to succeed, not just academically and professionally, but in the deep and abiding sense of being able to flourish as free and good human beings.
The conventional wisdom is that American students from poor families are mostly stuck in sorely underfunded public schools while more affluent families have access to well-resourced ones. For decades, this was largely true.
Editor’s post: This post was originally published on November 8, 2021, by the Learning Policy Institute as part of its “Educating the Whole Child“ blog series.
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Two charter networks, Uplift Education and Distinctive Schools, have provided models for supporting social-emotional learning (SEL) that other schools should emulate.
It is not a controversial statement to say that the debate over critical race theory in schools has shed more heat than light. This is not surprising. When a relatively obscure and arcane academic field suddenly becomes a high-profile political football, hotly debated on cable news shoutfests, it is almost certainly because it has been reduced to bumper-sticker simplicity.
Gifted education has been a much-debated issue
When the University of California began phasing-out college admissions test scores as part of a recent legal settlement, the rationale was “equity.” Lawyers for the students who brought the lawsuit said that “SAT and ACT scores are largely a proxy for a student’s socioeconomic background and race,” rather than measures of ac
The pandemic has provided a stream of unsettling headlines reminding us that our kids are not OK. They have grappled with surges in loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
While the gubernatorial upset in Virginia drew the brightest spotlight, Tuesday’s election featured an unusual surge in the number of school board candidates vying for thousands of seats all over the country. Four races were especially noteworthy, both for the charged political rancor leading up to November 2, as well as the potentially broader implications from the results.
Editor’s note: We're happy to introduce Jennifer Frey, who will be writing regularly for the Fordham Institute over the next year. She is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina, where she focuses on virtue ethics.
A story that became a flashpoint in national conversations around the effects of “CRT bans” is reaching its denouement: This past week, a hearing officer appointed to adjudicate the case ruled that the Sullivan County, Tennessee, school board was justified in