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Displaying 151-180 of 411 results
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
8.3.2023

Cheers and Jeers: August 3, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Cheers The College Board held its first annual AP conference since the pandemic and shared strategies for how to make Advanced Placement courses accessible to all. —Ed Week Jeers

Commentary
8.3.2023

What we're reading this week: August 3, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Contrary to popular belief, the SAT is indeed a good predictor of college success, but bad statistical analysis perpetuates the myth that it doesn’t.

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

Commentary
7.27.2023
Governance

Open enrollment might save suburban schools, not destroy them

Garion Frankel

Stand Up Blue Valley is a pro-public-education parents’ association in Overland Park, Kansas (a large suburb of Kansas City) with a reputation for milquetoast advocacy promoting local control, informed voting, and opposition to school choice.

Commentary
7.27.2023

What we're reading this week: July 27, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Rick Hess interviews Virginia school board member Andrew Rotherham on the state’s adoption of new social studies and history standards.

Commentary
7.24.2023
Advanced Education

How to ensure twice-exceptional students don't slip through the cracks

Adam Laningham, Sarah Holman

Imagine the course of history if some of the most brilliant minds were held back by learning disabilities. Albert Einstein was dyslexic and didn’t talk until he was six. His teachers said nothing good would come of him.

Commentary
7.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Building diverse college campuses starts in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

Rather than wait until kids are leaving high school to try to even the playing field, we must start in kindergarten to identify the most academically talented students of all races and backgrounds and give them the support they need to excel.

Commentary
7.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

Exit interview: James Peyser in defense of education reform

Robert Pondiscio

In the latest issue of Education Next, James Peyser argues that “overpromising” undercut the ed reform movement, in which he played a prominent role for three decades in a series of roles—from education advisor to two governors to chairman of the State Board of Education

Commentary
7.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Is ed tech contributing to chronic absenteeism?

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

Nearly two years after federal data indicated that 99 percent of students had returned to in-person learning full-time, as many as one out of three students still haven’t really returned fu

Commentary
7.20.2023
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The path to four million apprentices

Jeff Murray

For folks who question the value of a traditional four-year college degree—whether they have done so for ages or have only recently lost faith—apprenticeships seem like a promising alternative for young people leaving

Commentary
7.20.2023

What we're reading this week: July 20, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Contrary to many media narratives claiming that Asian Americans were stalking horses for whites, elite colleges really did discriminate against them.

Commentary
7.13.2023
School Finance, Governance

Low- and high-income schools now receive equal funding

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

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.

Golf ball in sand trap
Commentary
7.13.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The accountability conundrum

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Editor's note: Read more about this topic in Finn's essay in National Affairs, "The Accountability Challenge."

Golf ball in sand trap
Commentary
7.13.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop calling them book bans

Daniel Buck

You may have heard that conservative parent groups are banning books. From the Pulitzer-prize winning graphic novel Maus, to seemingly anything that addresses LGBT themes, such groups are challenging their inclusion in libraries and on curricula.

Commentary
7.13.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Can great high schools really make a difference for low-income students?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

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.

Commentary
7.13.2023

What we're reading this week: July 13, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Ivy League colleges remain the domain of an elite, privileged few and so the strike-down of affirmative action will have little effect on the other 99.8 percent of the populace.

Report
7.11.2023
School Finance

Think Again: Is education funding in America still unequal?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

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.

Commentary
7.6.2023
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Advanced Education

Who loses when we abolish entrance exams

Daniel Buck

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.

Commentary
7.6.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Giving marginalized students better access to customized learning opportunities

Katrina Boone

Recent policy innovations such as education savings accounts, microgrants, and tax credits address some of the financial barriers that prevent families from accessing flexible education opportunities.

Commentary
7.6.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Piloting an advanced learning curriculum for typically underserved students

Jeff Murray

In many schools, being identified as advanced or gifted doesn’t guarantee that students will receive “gifted services.” For low-income students, Black and Brown students, rural students, and many others, the odds of being identified as gifted and having access to advanced coursework are even lower than for their higher-income and White or Asian peers.