Podcast
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance
The Education Gadfly Show #781: The House Democrats’ attack on charter schools
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
We’re moving toward a more student-focused, parent-directed, pluralistic K–12 system
“Never in my lifetime have so many parents been so eager for so much education change.” So said longtime pollster Frank Luntz after surveying 1,000 public and private school parents on how the pandemic affected their view of schools.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Districts are failing special-needs students. School choice is helping.
Public schools have long failed to serve adequately students with disabilities, but school closures, disastrous for the millions of children with special needs, may finally encourage a critical mass of parents to do something about it.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Remote instruction is to blame for plummeting test scores
Texas recently became the first state to release state test score data since the pandemic hit.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice
Biden’s anticompetitive moves on charters and choice
Earlier this month, President Biden issued a sweeping executive order encouraging federal agencies to undertake a series of initiatives aimed at increasing competition in the U.S. economy. But there’s a mismatch between his approach to competition in the private sector and his support for monopoly when it comes to public education.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
2.7 cheers for the NAEP Reading Framework
Gadfly habitues have seen me grump, criticize, lament and recently brighten over the protract
Commentary
Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders
Charter school teachers are teachers, too
I was excited to meet a fellow high school teacher at a neighborhood potluck, but when she found out I worked at a charter school, she immediately said, “I don’t support charter schools.”
Commentary
Charter Schools, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Boston is punishing its Asian American community for its educational success
Boston just approved sweeping changes to the process by which students are admitted to its three highly-sought exam schools. The idea was to free up more seats for disadvantaged children, some of whom have long been underrepresented at the institutions. Yet in one important aspect, the plan may do exactly the opposite: It’s likely to significantly reduce the number of seats that go to low-income Asian American students.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Thinking requires knowledge
Editor’s note: This was first published by National Review.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Give a universal curriculum a chance: The NYC initiative holds promise
When Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter recently announced the city would spend more than $200 million dollars to develop a citywide reading and math curriculum, the smart and obvious take was
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Can investments in public libraries boost educational outcomes?
Myriad stories have emerged of non-school entities providing strong academic support to students during the pandemic disruptions of the past two school years.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Factors that help teaching candidates find and keep jobs
A recent CALDER working paper examined links between teacher preparation programs and the chance that their candidates will enter or remain in the public school system for their first two years post-graduation. Its findings can help school systems improve teacher retention—a problem that many districts face, especially those that mostly educate disadvantaged students.
Podcast
Commentary
Governance, Standards
How not to write state standards for civics and U.S. history
As discussed in Fordham’s new report, many states aren’t making the grade when it comes to their civics and U.S. history standards, which are often vague to the point of being meaningless.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Schools face a double whammy this fall: illiteracy and illiberalism
We’re not even midway through the summer and the start of the new academic year is in some cases just weeks away.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Preparing students of all races to achieve greatness
When looking for models of ambitious inspiration, Americans often hearken back to President John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” address at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
Commentary
Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Scaling up the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program helped public schools improve
As supporters of school choice celebrate a remarkable season of legislative wins across the country, they can also add some research-based evidence to their grounds for satisfaction.
Podcast
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance
Three hypotheses to explain this year’s big wins on school choice
Despite much anti-choice talk in national politics and some Congressional pushback, 2021 has seen an impressive string of victories for school choice at the state level, which is where it matters most. Was it the pandemic? Has the salience of the anti-school choice argument weakened over the past year? Or does Donald Trump deserve a lot of the credit? Read more.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
An improved forecast for the NAEP reading assessment
The prolonged fracas within and far beyond the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) concerning a new “framework” for NAEP’s future assessment of reading has been ominous on several fronts—as I haven’t hesi
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
No, school choice is not the answer to critical race theory
Why fight over critical race theory when we can choose? You teach oppression studies; I’ll teach American exceptionalism. It’s a simple and obvious solution. But it’s also a naïve and unsatisfying one. School choice may “solve” the CRT problem for an individual family, but it can’t address the clear interest that every American holds in the education of the next generation.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
We have spelling bees. Why aren’t there reading bees?
Today, the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals
Podcast
Accountability & Testing, ESSA, Governance, Private School Choice
The Education Gadfly Show #777: O-H-I-O: School reform victories in the Buckeye State
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What parents and teachers think about critical race theory
A new Heritage Foundation survey of more than 2,000 parents and teachers shows significant divides about teaching critical race theory. But there largely is consensus that civics content should focus on the duties of citizenship, not CRT.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
We need better civics education, but it won’t happen anytime soon
Fordham’s new report found that twenty states have “inadequate” civics and U.S. history standards that need a complete overhaul. An additional fifteen states were deemed to have “mediocre” standards that require substantial revisions. This fits the lackluster showing of U.S. students on the NAEP exams in these subjects, and suggests that some schools barely teach this content at all. Unfortunately, the obstacles in the way of improving this sad state run up and down the line.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
How to strengthen U.S. history and civics standards
For our constitutional democracy to survive, much rests on our ability to resolve “…differences even as we respect them,” which is The State of State Standards for Civics and History in 2021 report’s definition of the social purpose of civic education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How gender gaps in math and literacy change as students age
While women have largely erased, and in some areas even reversed, the historic gender gap in educational attainment, some career outcomes can still skew along gender lines.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Proof that it’s possible to approach civics and U.S. history in a balanced way
Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Or both or neither or some of each?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching U.S. history and civics in America’s pluralistic society
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s review of state standards for U.S. history and civics comes at a critical moment in American civic life.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Evaluating state intervention in low-performing districts 2011–2016
Across America, states are constitutionally responsible for providing K–12 education, but in practice school districts are the primary structure by which education is delivered. The vast majority of such districts are run by locally elected school boards.
