Beware the calls for post-Covid innovation
Now that Uncle Sam’s check is in the mail, one of the biggest hopes for schools is that they will be able to leverage the massive infusion of cash to be more creative, imaginative, and innovative.
Now that Uncle Sam’s check is in the mail, one of the biggest hopes for schools is that they will be able to leverage the massive infusion of cash to be more creative, imaginative, and innovative.
The Fordham Institute has published a two-part piece by Checker Finn on giving “power to the people,” as well as
Editor’s note: This is the fifth and final installment in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
One of the best-selling education books of the Covid era is one you’ve probably never read and maybe never even heard of. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was written nearly forty years ago by Siegfried Engelmann, who passed away in 2019.
Centering the work of charter schooling and authorizing in communities means listening to the aspirations and needs they have for students—especially communities that have been overlooked and not prioritized, like communities of color, those from lower-income tax brackets, and those with disabilities—and delivering with, not to, them.
High-dosage tutoring is receiving a lot of buzz as a promising tool to address learning loss in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. But unlike vaccines, successful tutoring programs are challenging to scale with fidelity. In this paper, long-time educators Michael Goldstein and Bowen Paulle explain how leaders can smartly scale promising tutoring programs that can boost student outcomes.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
Bullish but far from sanguine is how I view the ambitious history-and-civics “roadmap” unveiled
Yes, I blurbed it—and I like it. Yes, a visitor to our home, a worldly and skeptical sort, hefted it and looked at the title and asked me “Isn’t that awfully thick for a book about optimism regarding American public education?”
A lot of us have been confused, angry, and frustrated by the reluctance of some teachers, and particularly their unions, to resume in-person instruction.
Education funding is sticky. Once dollars are sent to a public school or school system, they tend to stay there.
As English learners approach language proficiency, does it matter whether they continue to receive English language instruction? A recent paper published in Economics of Education Review seeks to answer this question for English learners in Minnesota.
Back in May 2020, The U.S. Department of Education had to issue guidance clarifying that, yes, schools and districts were still required to provide language instruction services for English learners (EL) during remote learning.
With two big rounds of Covid-19 aid having been sent to schools and at least a third on the horizon, leaders must make difficult decisions, especially as more schools reopen and the pandemic rages on. How can they use this money to best mitigate risk, facilitate effective hybrid learning, and most importantly, get kids back on track after suffering substantial learning losses?
It’s not surprising that most of the arguments against widespread student loan forgiveness are coming from the political right, given that the idea itself gained prominence during the 2020 presidential campaigns of Senators Bernie Sander
Any discussion about “equity” in education that is not first and foremost a discussion about literacy is unserious.
Why do some students succeed and others lag behind? This is, of course, a central question in education policy.
Recent work published in the Journal of Labor Economics examines how school segregation may be related to racial gaps in special education identification.
Should President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to grant local school districts veto power over the creation of new charter schools within their borders, on the assumption that their expansion harms traditional public schools?
Opponents of charters contend that they drain district coffers, while proponents argue that it is charters that are denied essential funding. Yet too often, the claims made by both sides of this debate have been based on assumptions rather than hard evidence.
If the pandemic vanished tomorrow and all U.S. schools instantly reopened in exactly the same fashion as they were operating last February, how many parents would be satisfied to return their daughters and sons to the same old familiar classrooms, teachers, schedules and curricula? A lot fewer than the same old schools and those who run and teach in them are expecting back!
The father testifying before Virginia’s Loudon County school board
Predicting the effects of pandemic-related disruption on students’ education is a vital but fraught pursuit.
Editor’s note: This interview was first published by Rick Hess on his blog with Education Week, Rick Hess Straight Up.
Let’s start with a little game. Trust me, it will be helpful if you play along… Grab a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Complete the following sentence: First-year or early-career teachers typically struggle most with… (Try to come up with a few answers.)
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
Beware the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” President George W. Bush’s trenchant warning resonated across the political spectrum when he voiced it to the NAACP in 2000, and it has more or less driven federal education policy ever since. For many, educators and noneducators alike, it remains a touchstone of how to think about racial equity.
Despite the burgeoning interest in “high-quality instructional materials” (HQIM) and energetic efforts in recent years to incentivize their use, “evidence is mixed on how much teachers actually use the materials that districts or schools adopt,” note the authors of a new research report from the RAND Corporation.