Displaying 61-90 of 226 results
Commentary
9.14.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

Test-based retention, student achievement, and sibling spillover effects

Jeff Murray

Most public policy efforts are very specific about the individuals or groups intended to benefit from their implementation, and evaluations of such policies generally stick to impacts on the target population. However, education policies aimed at helping certain K–12 students can also have wider implications for other students.

Commentary
9.12.2023
Governance

Why serve on the National Assessment Governing Board?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

You may already know that back-to-school time means that nominations and applications are being accepted to join the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) a year from now. Here’s why you—and topnotch colleagues and friends—should take this seriously.

Commentary
9.7.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

America’s recent education declines in international context

Michael J. Petrilli

America’s recent achievement declines are far from unique. Consider, for example, Chile, whose academic progress, as measured by international assessments, also stalled out in the early to mid-2010s, just like ours did. And which is also facing a teenage mental health crisis, much like we are, as well as rising violence and disorder in and around their campuses. Are these worldwide phenomena?

Commentary
9.7.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Grade inflation is not a victimless crime

Frederick M. Hess

Editor’s note: This was first published by Forbes.

Commentary
8.31.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

The essential state role in educating advanced learners

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Getting advanced learners (a.k.a. “gifted” students) the education they need, and ensuring that this works equitably for youngsters from every sort of background, is substantially the responsibility of state leaders.

Commentary
8.31.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Texas’s controversial takeover of Houston’s schools

Daniel Buck

If you believe the media, it seems a dark lord has come to cut down the educational Eden that is the Houston Independent School District. He’s closing libraries to open detention centers.

Commentary
8.31.2023
Evidence-Based Learning

Searching for mobility in K–12 achievement

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Many Americans believe that the foremost mission of public education is to provide a pathway to success for every student, even in the face of considerable life obstacles. Yet persistent achievement gaps along dimensions of race, income, family education level, and other factors call this earnest expectation into question.

Commentary
8.30.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Advanced Education

America’s highest-achieving students are disproportionately Asian. Let’s not be afraid to investigate why.

Michael J. Petrilli, Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Fordham’s latest study finds that fewer Black and Hispanic students from the highest-SES group are achieving at NAEP’s Advanced level than we would expect, given their socioeconomic status. That disparity clearly commands our attention. But so do the findings on Asian American high achievers—who deserve our attention for a different reason.

Commentary
8.24.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How districts are gaming graduation rates by letting students cheat

Jeremy Noonan

For at least a decade, schools have been using online credit-recovery (OCR) courses to award bogus credits that satisfy graduation requirements, and thus inflating graduation rates.

Commentary
8.24.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Seven ways state leaders can rigorously implement the science of reading

Aaron Churchill

Ohio recently passed a historic state budget that includes, among other components, ambitious literacy reforms that require schools to follow the science of reading—an instructional approach that emphasizes phonics for building foundational lit

Commentary
8.24.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Long term outcomes of a home- and community-based literacy program

Jeff Murray

Future Forward began in Milwaukee in 2005 as SPARK—a small-scale, local effort to combine family engagement with intensive tutoring to help low-income elementary-age students improve their literacy skills. It has since expanded significantly, rebranded, and moved under the aegis of national nonprofit Education Analytics, Inc.

Commentary
8.17.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop using learning stations

Daniel Buck

Can we stop with the learning stations already? My teacher prep endorsed them. My first instructional coach trained me in them. Every school that I’ve ever worked at has incorporated them. Look them up on Teachers Pay Teachers and you’ll find scores of activities for various literacy stations, each one promising that they are proven effective.

Podcast
8.15.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice

#883: The student behavior crisis, with Daniel Buck

On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, Fordham’s editorial and policy associate, joins Mike and David to discuss the be

Commentary
8.10.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Mike Schmoker’s achievable vision for education reform

Daniel Buck

I must admit, I’d become something of an education fatalist. I know the research about direct instruction. I know the power of a knowledge-rich, well-sequenced curriculum and the promise of school choice. I know that individual schools and even whole charter systems can achieve amazing results. But I always wonder: Is it all for naught?

Commentary
8.3.2023
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Fair funding finally flows to charters—but the window won’t stay open forever

Michael J. Petrilli

A remarkable increase in charter school funding across a number of states—and not just red—is finally addressing some of the deepest spending inequities in American education. But with Covid money drying up, declining student enrollment, and an aging population, tougher times lie ahead.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards

Virginia leads the way on conservative education reform

Daniel Buck

Not since former Governor Scott Walker bludgeoned the unions in my home state of Wisconsin has there been such national outrage over state-level education policies. Historically, state-scale education has been a secondary affair, rarely topping the list of people’s substantive or political priorities, and most decisions have been left to local decision-making.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Mississippi didn’t cheat. Its reading gains are real.

Todd Collins

Is Mississippi a cheater? Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik seems sure of it. Last month, the Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion writer published a column saying that Mississippi’s widely acclaimed reading improvement was just a mirage.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Assessing the operations and impacts of Teach For America in Indianapolis

Jeff Murray

The Indianapolis branch of Teach For America (TFA Indy) was established in 2008, expanding the national organization’s mission—to build and deploy a corps of high-quality education leaders to support high-needs students—into the Hoosier State.

Commentary
7.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The college-going rate is down. Here’s hoping it falls even further.

Michael J. Petrilli

One of the biggest shifts in education in recent years has been a gradual move away from the “college for all” mantra, and hard numbers show a concurrent decline in the proportion of high school students matriculating directly to college. Far from something to deplore, this trend is a positive development—but only so long as the right teenagers are choosing to enter the labor market rather than pursue college.

Commentary
7.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

It’s time to dump Reading Recovery

Aaron Churchill

This month, Ohio joined a growing list of states and school systems that require schools to use high-quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading, an approach to reading instruction that emphasizes