One of the most contentious debates in American education focuses on whether to group students into classrooms using some measure of prior achievement.
After a tumultuous reception, the Biden administration’s regulations for the federal
Since the end of World War II, the world’s population has not only gotten vastly bigger; it has also become vastly more educated. In nearly every country, the total number of years that citizens have attended school has grown faster than the population itself, and the number of college degrees conferred has grown even faster.
For years, millions of U.S. students have taken the NWEA MAP Growth assessment. Data from these computer-adaptive assessments—which cover math, reading, language usage, and science—can help teachers determine which students need remediation or other supports and in which topic areas.
Credentials matter, but maybe not as much as many hope. That seems to be one of the takeaways from Fordham’s latest report by Matt Giani evaluating high school industry recognized credential (IRC) attainment and learner outcomes in Texas.
Nine percent. That’s how many Black boys met expectations in math in D.C.’s traditional public schools in 2022, down from 17 percent before the pandemic. It’s also how many met those expectation in the city’s charter schools, down from 22 percent. The word “disaster” is used a lot lately, but it is absolutely the right fit here. There are, however, lessons we can learn from this catastrophe.
International student assessments are commonplace today, though none existed before 1965, and few countries participated at the outset.
A recent study from the Journal of Learning Disabilities sheds light on the vitally important question of which students with disabilities (SWDs) are placed primarily outside of general education classrooms. Specifically, analysts seek to document the level of racial or ethnic disparities in placement and whether those disparities are explained by bias or other factors.
A new Fordham Institute report authored by University of Texas professor Matt Giani finds that industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) are “mostly not transformative” for the high school students who earn them. But the truth is that it’s all about the context.
The pandemic accelerated a mental health crisis for children and teens that was already apparent prior to spring 2020. It is a serious issue, and schools have expanded mental health services to meet the needs of a greater number of struggling students. At the same time, as we commence a school year in which educators must continue the intensive work of repairing the pandemic’s academic damage, focusing on student emotional wellness does not require relinquishing academic learning.
Just in the nick of time for the last days of summer beach reading, there were a pair of big stories about reading instruction in TIME magazine and The New Yorker last month.
Whether or not the bipartisan education consensus is dead, one of its most visible and effective reforms lives on: so-called “No Excuses” model schools, institutions famous for their exacting behavioral and academic standards.
As money and attention focus on career and technical education (CTE) at ever greater levels, researchers can help gauge program effectiveness by digging into the data.
Four-day school weeks saw a sharp increase in popularity between 1999 and 2019, then the pandemic added impetus to the already growing trend—with districts seeing shortened school weeks as a way to retain teachers and cut expenses.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, Elliot Regenstein joins
Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
Earlier this month, Michael Petrilli wrote about America’s top-quartile students making gains from 2009 to 2019 over their already high baseline—in math, reading, and science—and our lower-quartile kids declining from their already low baseline.
About three-quarters of students in the U.S. take at least one credit in high school linked to career and technical education (CTE). When high school students take multiple CTE credits, they are often encouraged to focus in a specialized career pathway, like business, health sciences, or hospitality and tourism.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show Podcast, John Bailey, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
For all the welcome attention being paid to the Science of Reading, and literacy in general, there has been little focus in public policy on how to address the learning needs of secondary students who, for whatever combination of reasons, have failed to learn to read in elementary school.
A new Fordham Institute publication by Dr.
In the realm of elementary and secondary education, we so often focus on one or two trees instead of the forest. We go off and argue about the best way to teach reading, about which books belong in the school library, about whether everyone should take “college prep” courses, about how to teach race or evolution or climate change or even algebra.
