Curriculum Associates CEO Kelly Sia recently defended her company’s flagship i-Ready platform to Fordham readers. The program, used by millions of students, has come under fire from teachers, parents, and students as part of an ed-tech backlash sweeping the nation.
Texas’s new social studies standards, required literature list, and curriculum have all drawn familiar charges of culture-war excess, with their inclusion of Bible stories, canonical books, and “patriotic” content. But taken together, these initiatives suggest something more consequential than conservative provocation. Read more.
Dale Chu’s recent critique of through-year assessment revisits a familiar concern: that state assessments cannot serve both accountability and instruction without compromising one purpose or the other. It is a concern worth taking seriously.
In a recent Flypaper post, Dale Chu argues that the promise of a single assessment system doing multiple things well is “too good to be true.” He says that through-year assessments (TYA)—tests administered periodically throughout the school year that culminate in a summative score—are tryi
New York City’s Small Schools of Choice (SSC) program was one of a panoply of education reforms enacted in the early 2000s under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chief Joel Klein.
Throughout the first quarter of the 21st century, schools built up capacity to accommodate growing student populations, adding classroom space, teacher positions, and the many resources that go into educating a child. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the build-up through the injection of giant sums of federal money to supplement state and local budgets.
In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress Long Term Trends analysis, 23 percent of the 13-year-olds surveyed report that they are enrolled in Algebra I. For those seventh and eighth graders, that’s great news.
Mike Petrilli takes the mic to consider whether America’s schools need a renewed sense of urgency around
The newest Long-Term-Trend NAEP results bring some welcome news: Lower-performing nine-year-olds made substantial gains in reading and math. But it also brought unwelcome news: students at the top barely moved, while high-performing thirteen-year-olds remain well below their pre-pandemic marks. For the country’s highest achievers, progress remains elusive.
In nearly every part of the country, the school year is over. The final bell has rung; report cards have been issued; summer vacation has begun. For teachers and schools, the clock has run out.
The Trump administration is in the midst of a sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Department of Education.
A new white paper from NWEA, and its accompanying op-ed in The Hill, claim that districts are more likely to permanently shutter schools with a high proportion of poor and/or Black stud
A recent study in the Journal of Educational Psychology examines the extent to which disruptive classroom environments contribute to children’s experiences of victimization (i.e., bullying) in elementary school.
Editor’s note: This was first published as part of a newsletter for Mike’s Substack, SCHOOLED.
Teacher evaluation systems and their reforms were built, in part, on the idea that rubric-based classroom observations, paired with feedback, would improve teacher performance and raise student achievement. Not every reform delivered on this promise, but there were bright spots.
As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, civics education and American citizenship are receiving much attention. Yet recent surveys reveal widening generational and partisan divides over patriotism, the nation’s founding, and what schools should teach about American history. The findings are troubling even as the growing effort to strengthen civic knowledge and commitment offers some grounds for hope.
As Americans are discovering during this summer’s World Cup, soccer often produces an outcome that is unsatisfying to our domestic sports sensibilities: a tie. One team controls possession while the other creates better scoring chances. Both leave the pitch claiming vindication, but neither gets to declare victory.
When the Supreme Court bases a decision on policy considerations, the downstream consequences can be significant. A compelling example is 1982’s Plyler v.
Editor’s note: The following piece is written by Kelly Sia, chief executive officer of Curriculum Associates, the company behind i-Ready, a widely used online assessment and instructional program for reading and math. In recent months, i-Ready has faced a wave of criticism concerning screen time, implementation, and the strength of the evidence supporting its effectiveness.
For several decades, K–12 ed-reformers and policy leaders have pushed to expand public school options and pathways.
Editor’s note: This is the final post in a three-part series written by Elainah Elkins and Jill Hoppe, born in 1999 and 2000, respectively. There is growing discourse surrounding Gen Z, but the voices of Gen Zers themselves are often missing from the conversation. This is their response.
The Education Freedom Tax Credit could be an utter disaster, argues Buck. The greatest risk is that, in time, the program will become a stick that the federal government can wield to thwack private schools into submission. But that’s not the only problem.
