Podcast
Governance
#862: The education implications of Chicago’s mayoral election, with Natalie Neris and Hal Woods
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast,
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
States can improve equity and outcomes in gifted education, but too many aren’t trying
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Keep the tests, but reform the test prep
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
We know student effort matters, so let’s start acting like it
Student effort is the secret sauce at Success Academy charter schools, says their founder and CEO, and they teach and celebrate it religiously. Indeed, after seventeen years of educating tens of thousands of students, careful analysis of homework, classwork, and assessment data has taught the Success Academy team that a large proportion of errors, up to 70 percent, don’t result from not knowing or understanding the content, but from a lack of care and attention to detail.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
We must return to the core mission of education: academic learning
It’s a familiar and dreary tale. For twenty years, the math and reading learning outcomes of our nation’s twelfth graders have been flat. More recently, the performance gap between the wealthiest and poorest students has widened, while between Black and White students the previous gap-closing has stalled.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How teachers affect students’ perceptions of school climate
Once inside, it doesn’t take long to soak up the climate of a school. A simple walk down the hallway can give you clues. Is it clean? Are the bulletin boards up to date? Can you hear the energetic buzz of learning versus the cacophony of bad behavior? Do students and teachers greet you with a smile or a cold shoulder?
Podcast
Governance
#861: The fight to lift the charter school cap in New York City, with Crystal McQueen-Taylor
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast,
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
To improve student outcomes, ask teachers to do fewer things better
We are seeking to raise and enhance the capacities of teachers while, at the same time, placing ever greater burdens on them. But the inconvenient fact is that the nation needs nearly 4 million people to teach its children, and any number that large means the men and women who staff our schools and teach our children will be, by definition, ordinary people.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice
ESAs’ surge is decades in the making, and advocates are prepared for pushback
In the summer of 2015, I sat at my desk and Googled “health savings account providers.” At the time, I had been in states across the country advocating for creation of education savings account (ESA) programs.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
“District innovation”: Not an oxymoron?
The latest report from UVA’s Partnership for Leaders in Education is breathlessly upbeat about the opportunities for radical, disruptive changes in K–12 education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How teacher prep can help educators build students’ content knowledge
In recent years, research on the relationship between content knowledge and reading a
Podcast
Teachers & School Leaders
#860: Social media and kids’ declining mental health, with Michael Horn
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Michael Horn joins Mike Petrilli
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
“Because equity” is not a good reason to lower standards
Noble is the desire to bend our system toward the needs of our most disadvantaged students—students who are disproportionately poor, Black, and Brown. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this. Leveling up is the right way. Leveling down is the wrong way. Expanding access and opportunity is the right way. Lowering standards is the wrong way. Guess which way is gaining steam?
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
We’d be paying teachers far more if we’d chosen quality over quantity
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
No, Professor Boaler, we should not stop talking about learning loss
Recently, Jo Boaler—a Stanford professor and one of the country’s foremost scholars of mathematics—took to the Hechinger Report to write about pandemic learning loss
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Reconnecting knowledge and virtue in higher education
Classical education seeks to develop the whole person by reconnecting knowledge and virtue.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Steep transportation challenges for choice-rich districts
School transportation problems have been big news
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Mississippi reading model continues to shine
Mississippi’s model for improving early literacy has been a standout since 2019, based on its nation-leading achievement growth on the fourth grade NAEP reading test.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
The SAT and ACT don’t drive inequities in higher education
The claim that the SAT and ACT drive inequities in higher education feeds the movement against standardized testing and has been at the heart of successful court cases, but this new brief argues that, whether colleges decide to go “test optional” or not, the implications for equity are actually minimal. Read more.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice
On ESAs’ popularity and coming challenges: A letter to Checker Finn
Dear Checker,
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Is transporting students for intradistrict open enrollment worth the cost?
In an effort to expand educational opportunity, several large urban school districts—including Boston, Chicago, New York City,
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The effects of an affordable middle school math intervention
Recent national test data paint an alarming picture of middle school math achievement post-Covid, with eighth grade math scores on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) having the largest decrease of any other subject or grade.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
How one school district is balancing excellence and equity—and another isn’t
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.
Podcast
Governance
#858: The Trump and DeSantis culture war fixation, with Dale Chu
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Dale Chu joins Mike Petrilli to discuss whether Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Preparing young people for success at work is about knowledge and relationships
What does it mean to “prepare young people for adult work,” an oft-used saying to describe one of schooling’s primary goals? Though it surely means that we prepare them to earn a living and move up the income ladder, work is more than a financial way to provide for ourselves and those we love.
Commentary
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice
Why I’m wary of universal education savings accounts
In the fast-moving, highly energized world of school choice and parent-empowerment advocacy, education savings accounts are the hottest thing since vouchers, maybe even hotter. Ten states already have them in some form, and a dozen more legislatures are weighing bills to create them. But Finn is wary, particularly of the free-swinging, almost-anything-goes version known as “universal” ESAs.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The GOP’s dubious “protect the children” platform for 2024
Ready or not, the 2024 race for president is already in full swing. Like bad plastic surgery, this ordeal will be ugly and expensive.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The policies promoting school shootings
The school shooting in Newport News, Virginia, involving a six-year-old who shot his teacher, fell from the headlines before we could learn our lesson from it.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The sad state of the teaching profession
“Go to law school.” This was the advice that my mother—who had spent her entire career as a high school English teacher—gave me upon my college graduation. She also advised me on which career to avoid: teaching. My mother was adamant that I not follow her footsteps into the classroom.
Commentary
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Give parents wide latitude on ESA uses—and give teachers their own accounts, too
Recent news stories have pushed the narrative that parents are using education savings accounts to buy items of questionable educational value and relevance, including chicken coops, trampolines, and tickets to SeaWorld. But perhaps ESAs’ permissiveness is a feature, not a bug—and perhaps officials would be wise to go one step further and give teachers their own accounts.
