Impacts of school restarts and closures on students
School closure is among the most heavy-handed interventions for turning around chronically underperforming schools.
School closure is among the most heavy-handed interventions for turning around chronically underperforming schools.
State-level school finance reforms and, to a lesser extent, increases in federal funding for schools have worked: America’s shamefully persistent inequities in school funding are finally a thing of the past. School funding is now generally progressive, meaning that students from poor families typically attend better-funded schools than students from wealthier families in the same state.
Editor's note: Read more about this topic in Finn's essay in National Affairs, "The Accountability Challenge."
How well do our public high schools prepare students—especially low-income students—for future success? A working paper from analysts at Brown and Harvard addresses that question, focusing on a number of consequential middle- and longer-term outcomes.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Fordham’s Adam Tyner joins Mike to discuss his latest report on the inequalities or
This brief challenges the notion that economically disadvantaged students receive less funding than other students, with implications for equalizing classroom resources and optimizing other social policies.
In the wake of last week’s affirmative action decision, most analysts expect the recent enthusiasm for test-optional admissions policies to continue—if for no other reason than to make schools’ racial gerrymandering less transparent. Yet the students who will lose most in the process are the very students that these measures ostensibly seek to help: high performing, underprivileged students.
Parents and policymakers inured to years of depressing headlines about learning disruptions in the wake of the pandemic might be tempted to shrug at the latest federal test data on the achievement of thirteen-year-olds as more of the same.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Alia Wong of USA Today joins Mike and David to discuss what’s caus
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.
Standardized tests and test-based accountability have come under serious criticism in recent years. One of the most important questions is whether improving student learning, as measured by test scores, helps improve students’ opportunities later in life. It’s a tough issue to study, but the weight of the evidence says: yes.
This month, New York City students received their offers to the city’s eight specialized high schools. As has been the case in recent years, Asian students form over half of the admittees, followed by White, Hispanic, and Black students.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kevin Teasley, of the Greater Educational Opportunities F
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Nick Colangelo of the University of Iowa joins Mike Petr
Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that allowed high schoolers to use the Classic Learning Test (CLT)—a classical alternative to the SAT and ACT—to qualify for the state’s Bright Futures scholarship. Already accepted at over 200 colleges, this legislation is the CLT’s biggest boost yet.
In recent years, the debate on the impact of financial resources in education has been petering out. Studies showing that more money for schools has had a discernable effect on student academic outcomes, particularly for students from lower-income families, keep accumulating.
As the school year winds down, and with the World Health Organization officially declaring the emergency phase of the Covid-19 pandemic over earlier this month, many students, parents, a
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tom Kane of Harvard University joins Mike Petrilli to discuss his findings from The Education Recovery Scorecard Project.
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.
Aaargh. Here we go again. The new National Assessment civics and history results are as deplorable as they were predictable. Whether they’ll also serve as the action-forcer that we need is far from certain.
How to select students for advanced or elite academic programs has long been controversial. Critics of “holistic” admissions policies argue they often turn to mush—or inject bias into the process. At the other extreme, a few programs use nothing more than a single assessment to determine placement.
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the universal ESA programs that are sweeping the nation, but they are worth rooting for anyway because they’ll likely lead traditional public schools to improve.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Sc
When Tennessee House Republicans expelled, albeit briefly, two young, Black Democratic lawmakers late last week, it raised a number of unsettling questions—not only about the contours of our politics, but also about the future of educat
Despite the expansion of computer-based testing in schools over the last decade—and ongoing concerns about negative impacts
As school accountability systems reset following pandemic disruptions, an opportunity arises to improve their accuracy and make sure the intended responses to data resulting from them are properly tuned. A new study from the U.S.
This school year was supposed to mark the beginning of the comeback. Largely free from pandemic-related disruptions and with coffers flush with Uncle Sam’s Covid cash, states could finally turn their attention toward clawing back what students have lost.
Districts that lose students to charter schools can and ultimately will adjust their behavior. And indeed, recent research implies that, while charters marginally reduce districts’ total revenues per pupil, they also make them more efficient. The challenge for policymakers is managing whatever transition costs may be associated with moving to a more choice-based system in a way that is fair to students and taxpayers.
When I started Instruction Partners and began working deeply and regularly with multiple school systems, I was surprised by some patterns. The same motivational quotes were in almost every school hallway. Many teachers' lounges had the same air freshener. There was a similar tension between certain departments in almost every district.
Almost everyone wants to raise teacher pay. The push comes in various forms and from various places—mostly recently a proposal by Congressional liberals to create a $60,000 floor under teacher salaries. Yet we’d have far more generous teacher pay today if we hadn’t opted to hire more teachers and support staff over the years rather than raising salaries.