Commentary
Topics
Commentary
What we're reading this week: February 22, 2024
Seemingly positive daily attendance data can mask the realities of chronic absenteeism.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Why schools are failing to narrow excellence gaps in math
Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist.
Event
Charter Schools
NACSA's Third Thursdays // New School Applications: Do Authorizer Evaluations Predict the Success of New Charter Schools?
NACSA is honored to feature the report from the Thomas B.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
On teacher housing, is the juice worth the squeeze?
In recent months, housing programs for school teachers have begun to receive high-profile attention. And with good reason: As costs of living have risen, teacher salaries have not kept pace, thereby decreasing some educators’ ability to live near their workplaces. But are such policies actually a good thing? In short: We really don’t know.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance
Idaho’s charter school law rewrite: Better, not perfect
Idaho’s public charter school law turned twenty-five last year. Over that quarter century, the statute has grown warts. It’s also too complicated, burdened by vestigial code and rules, and confusing to schools, authorizers,[1] and state education agencies alike.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: February 15, 2024
Forty-four percent of Gen Z men say they had no romantic relationships as teenagers, compared to 32 percent of Millennial men, 23 percent of Gen X men, and 20 percent of Boomer men.
Commentary
Personalized Learning
It’s time to launch a national initiative to create the new American high school
This essay first appeared in an slightly different form as part of the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s 2023 State of the American Student report.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Doing educational equity right: School closures
Shuttering under-enrolled schools is usually seen as a bad thing—for students and for neighborhoods. But that need not be the case. An equitable approach to school closures would commit to placing affected students in higher-performing schools.
Commentary
Standards
A reboot of the Institute of Education Sciences? Time will tell.
It’s been more than two decades since Congress passed and President Bush (43) signed the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA), giving birth to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) as we know it.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Yes, read old books
My students caught me smelling an old book once. While they were silently reading one day, I noticed a tattered book on the shelf. So what did I do? Following deep instincts, I pulled it down, cracked the spine, and breathed deeply. “Mr. Buck, what are you DOING?!” I turned around to find the whole class staring at me.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
NCTQ analyzes how well states are using policy to promote the science of reading
Many states are overhauling their early literacy policies to align with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge building. Effectively implementing these reforms is crucial, as high-quality reading instruction can improve both academic and life outcomes for children.
Commentary
Cheers and Jeers: February 8, 2024
Cheers With declining enrollment, school closures are coming, and it’s imperative that journalists cover them honestly. —Tim Daly, The Grade
Commentary
Private School Choice
Have students who left public schools during the pandemic returned?
Examination of Covid-era impacts on students, families, and schools continues apace. Getting a full picture of the fallout, who was affected, and how helps education leaders better direct their resources to serve impacted students.
Commentary
What we're reading this week: February 8, 2024
A recent survey found that six in ten Black single mothers plan to vote for leaders who will expand their school choice options. —The 74
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Grading New York’s “back to basics” reading plan
Better late than never, New York State has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Assuming the legislature grants the request, here’s how New York could maximize the program’s impact.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance
Colorado’s accountability fiasco
Last year, Colorado’s legislature established an “Accountability, Accreditation, Student Performance, and Resource Inequity Task Force”—a twenty-six-member behemoth charged with, among other things, making recommendations on the future of the state’s K–12 asses
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: February 1, 2024
High-dosage tutoring is a key intervention to overcome pandemic-era learning loss. —Michael Jonas, Commonwealth Beacon Experts offer four strategies to help adolescents reduce their screen time.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Gifted under-identification: How to improve diverse student access to gifted programming
As the population of English learners (ELs) in grades K–12 grows, so do the challenges school districts face in identifying gifted students and putting in place appropriate enrichment and acceleration opportunities for them.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The right to school choice is also about the right to stay put
Fordham’s latest report, "New Home, Same School," analyses the relationships among residential mobility, school mobility, and charter school enrollment. It finds, among other things, that changing schools is associated with a small decline in academic progress in math and a slight increase in suspensions—and that residentially mobile students in charter schools are less likely to change schools than their counterparts in traditional public schools.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Doing educational equity right: Advanced education
This is the fourth in a series on doing educational equity right.
Commentary
Governance
If Trump returns...
Now that President Trump has soundly defeated Governor Haley in New Hampshire and thus appears to have sewn up the GOP nomination, it’s time to consider what a second Trump term may mean for education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction
Testing multiple measures of school economic disadvantage
Equitably funding education in America means providing more resources to students who need additional support.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: January 25, 2024
Black families disproportionately attend schools of choice and so are caught in the middle of the school choice debate in Chicago.
Report
Charter Schools
New Home, Same School: Charters and residentially mobile students
Because the housing and education markets are linked, evictions and other involuntary changes in residence often force students to change schools at a time when they are vulnerable. But is disrupting at-risk students' education in this manner necessary?
Commentary
Facilities, School Finance, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
High schools where students routinely graduate with college degrees: An interview with Kevin Teasley, CEO of GEO Academies
Khaya Njumbe enrolled at GEO Academies’ 21st Century Charter School, in Gary, Indiana, when he was eleven years old. By age thirteen, he’d become the youngest student in state history to earn an associate degree.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Doing educational equity right: School discipline
If school funding is the issue around which it’s easiest to find common ground across left and right, school discipline might be the hardest. That shouldn’t be surprising, given how divisive our country’s debate has been on the related issue of criminal justice and law enforcement. But we can begin to bridge these ideological differences if we commit to “doing educational equity right.”
