On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tom Loveless, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, j
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.
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.
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
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
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
Contrary to many media narratives claiming that Asian Americans were stalking horses for whites, elite colleges really did discriminate against them.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Perpetual Baffour, the research director at the Learning Agency Lab, joins
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
With the liberal arts seemingly in a perpetual budgetary and identity
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.
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.
How might the SCOTUS decision on affirmative action in higher education also affect K–12 policy? —Education Next A college professor reflects on “racial gamification,” the byproduct of affirmative action.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Jim Peyser joins Mike to discuss education
America’s school choice moment has finally arrived, but the vast majority of students nationwide still attend traditional public schools—and will for the foreseeable future. Conservatives would be wise to support policies that give families choices within the public education system. Cross-district open enrollment does precisely that, and it has strong bipartisan support.
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 Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case about a North Carolina charter school’s dress code. In doing so, SCOTUS also declined the opportunity to declare charter schools public—or not.
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.
