A downbeat assessment of students’ mental and social-emotional health in the Covid era
Jeff MurrayIt is no exaggeration to say that very little good can likely come from a global pandemic, especially in the short term. And while the “term” of the current pandemic seems to lengthen every day, we are still firmly in the realm of the immediate when discussing impacts.
NWEA measures the impact of the pandemic on student achievement and growth
Jessica PoinerResearchers at NWEA have been using data from their MAP Growth assessments to predict and analyze learning losses since the start of the pandemic.
Using deeper learning to strengthen our democracy
Kent McGuireThe past eighteen months have been some of the most tumultuous in the history of our nation. The twin pandemics of Covid-19 and social injustice have highlighted how today’s students face very different expectations than students encountered in previous generations.
A bright future for open enrollment
Matthew Ladner“Hi. Welcome to the future. San Dimas, California. 2688.” Rufus, played by George Carlin, thus opened the American film classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure by explaining that, in the distant future, everything is great. The water, air, and even the dirt is clean.
A third disrupted year can only strain Americans’ ties to traditional public schools
Robert PondiscioIn the early days of the pandemic, I was dismissive of “new normal” talk about Covid’s long-term impact on schooling. There was good reason for skepticism.
Does the medium matter? Academic outcomes for print versus digital reading.
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.Reading on a computer screen became a must for millions of youngsters at the onset of pandemic-induced school closures when they lost access to classrooms and library books in school buildings.
The Education Gadfly Show #783: One teacher’s call for choice and content-rich curricula
State civics and U.S. history standards are less politically biased than before. Let’s keep it that way.
Jeremy A. Stern, Ph.D.In 2020, as we began to look at state U.S. history standards for the first time since 2011, I was concerned about what we would find.
Can changing our eduspeak help with post-pandemic schooling?
Dale ChuThe radio show Marketplace recently ran a piece asking, “Can changing home appraisal language help close the wealth gap?” The story examined structural racism in the housing market, specifically the wealth gap that persists as a result of Black and Hispanic families having t
“Public education sucks” is a weak argument for school choice
Robert PondiscioI’ve long believed the best argument for school choice is to turn up the lights on what is possible when there’s room for a wide variety of schools, curricula, and cultures. Call it the When Harry Met Sally model.
Groundhog Day for school discipline
David GriffithOn June 4, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights asked for information that would help it “support schools in addressing disparities and eliminating discrimination in school discipline and fostering positive and inclusive school climates,” suggesting that something resembling the Obama-era discipline guidance may be reinstated in the near future.
Busting the belief gap via regular student assessment
Jeff MurrayAt its simplest, the belief gap is the gulf between what students can accomplish and what others—particularly teachers—believe they can achieve. It is especially pernicious when beliefs around academic competency are fueled by extraneous information such as socioeconomic status, race, or gender.
The Education Gadfly Show #781: The House Democrats’ attack on charter schools
We’re moving toward a more student-focused, parent-directed, pluralistic K–12 system
Bruno V. Manno“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.
Districts are failing special-needs students. School choice is helping.
Ginny GentlesPublic 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.
Remote instruction is to blame for plummeting test scores
Nat MalkusTexas recently became the first state to release state test score data since the pandemic hit.
Biden’s anticompetitive moves on charters and choice
Dale ChuEarlier 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.
2.7 cheers for the NAEP Reading Framework
Chester E. Finn, Jr.Gadfly habitues have seen me grump, criticize, lament and recently brighten over the protract
How well do public schools in large cities overcome the effects of poverty and other barriers?
Jessica PoinerA recently released report by the Council of the Great City Schools seeks to determine whether urban public schools—including charters—are succeeding in their efforts to mitigate the effects of poverty and other educational barriers.
How do suspensions affect classroom learning?
Jeremy SmithA recent study in the journal Education Finance and Policy uses quarterly achievement and discipline data on nearly 16,000 seventh through eleventh grade students in an inner-ring suburban California school district to estimate the effect of suspensions on the English language arts and math achievement of non-suspended classmates.
Can investments in public libraries boost educational outcomes?
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.Myriad stories have emerged of non-school entities providing strong academic support to students during the pandemic disruptions of the past two school years.
Scaling up the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program helped public schools improve
Jeff MurrayAs 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.
An improved forecast for the NAEP reading assessment
Chester E. Finn, Jr.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
Texting parents helps improve student literacy. But how much is too much?
Jeremy SmithText-message nudges have been a viable tool in early-childhood literacy in recent years, with parents or guardians receiving occasional missives to encourage specific literacy activities with their children.
Are Virginia’s elementary schools worsening achievement gaps?
William RostA new working paper from researchers out of the University of Virginia uses data from the state’s kindergarten literacy assessment, the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), to examine how the subsequent achievement trajectories of kindergarteners who enter school with similar literacy levels differ by race and/or SES. The findings are worrying.
The Education Gadfly Show #777: O-H-I-O: School reform victories in the Buckeye State
How to strengthen U.S. history and civics standards
Louise DubéFor 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.
Dan Willingham’s "Why Don’t Students Like School" stands the test of time. That was the point.
Robert PondiscioMy 2009 copy of Why Don’t Students Like School by Dan Willingham is among the most dog-eared and annotated books I own. Along with E.D. Hirsch’s The Knowledge Deficit (2006) and Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion (2010), I’m hard-pressed to think of another book in the last twenty years that had a greater impact on my teaching, thinking, or writing about education.