Displaying 1-30 of 162 results
Commentary
11.8.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

The future of exam schools

Hilde Kahn

Editor’s note: This essay was part of an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that is 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.

Commentary
10.27.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Determining the factors that lead to kindergarten ability group placement

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Ability grouping—arranging students in a classroom into smaller learning groups based on their aptitude in a given subject—is a common practice among teachers as early as kindergarten.

Commentary
10.25.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

High-achieving middle schoolers have suffered devastating math losses, finds NAEP

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
10.6.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

High-achieving middle and high schoolers gain from latest NYC ed reform

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Brandon L. Wright

Amid nonstop controversy, New York City, which runs the nation’s largest school system, is again moving in the right direction when it comes to advancing the education of able students and opening opportunities to more high achievers. This after much retrograde activity during the regime of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Commentary
9.29.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Should schools group students by ability?

Scott J. Peters, Jonathan Plucker

One of the most contentious debates in American education focuses on whether to group students into classrooms using some measure of prior achievement.

Commentary
9.13.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Rural gifted children are being neglected: An interview with Paula McGuire

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
8.31.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, High Achievers

Pre-pandemic, more U.S. students were excelling in math

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
8.18.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

The benefits of multiple screenings for student giftedness

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Efforts to diversify the roster of students classified as gifted often focus on race and ethnicity.

Commentary
8.17.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Gifted education is (hopefully) a work in progress in America’s largest school district

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
8.4.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Gifted students need a “continuum of services” now more than ever

Dina Brulles

Teachers are now planning instruction for the new school year. But very quickly after their pupils arrive, many will realize that some students will not be adequately challenged by the grade-level curriculum typically assigned for the class. Some will already have mastered that material and are ready to move on.

Commentary
8.3.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

An interview with Janet Kragen, who taught gifted education for four decades

Brandon L. Wright

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.

Commentary
7.20.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Balancing equity and excellence in selective high schools

Brandon L. Wright, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, Evan Glazer

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.

Commentary
7.15.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Gifted-student screenings often miss poor students who should qualify

Bich Thi Ngoc Tran, Jonathan Wai, Sarah McKenzie

High-achieving students from low-income backgrounds are half as likely to be placed in a gifted program as their more affluent peers, according to our new study.

Commentary
7.14.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop neglecting gifted students’ social and emotional needs

Susan Miller, Tom Coyne

Back in February, Bloomberg’s Adrian Wooldridge published a column claiming that “America is facing a great talent recession.” He noted that, “today, demand for top talent in the corporate world and elsewhere is exploding just at a time when the supply is t

Commentary
7.6.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Hope and progress for gifted education

Brandon L. Wright

This is the first edition of “Advance,” a new Fordham Institute newsletter that will monitor the progress of gifted education. Here, Wright recounts recent developments that reinforce two truths: Gifted education is a clear and substantial good, and it can be much better.

Commentary
6.9.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Do gifted and talented programs contribute to racial imbalances in elementary school?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

The clatter that rose in late 2021 over New York City’s plan to phase out its gifted and talented (G/T) programs had much to do with the presumed negative effects of such programs on racial sorting.

Commentary
6.2.2022
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

How to narrow the excellence gap in early elementary school

Michael J. Petrilli

In recent weeks, I’ve dug into the “excellence gap“—the sharp divides along lines of race

Commentary
5.26.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

The excellence gap opens early

Michael J. Petrilli

Last week, I provided sobering evidence of the “excellence gap” among twelfth grade students—the sharp divides along lines of race and class in achievement at the highest levels.

Commentary
3.17.2022
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers

San Francisco’s detracking experiment

Tom Loveless

Editor's note: This post was originally published on tomloveless.com.

Commentary
3.10.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Keep fighting for selective high schools

Brandon L. Wright

In cities across the country, selective high schools are facing increasing pressure to change their admissions policies to make their incoming student populations more socioeconomically and racially diverse. Closing these gaps is a laudable and important goal. But the most common strategies for accomplishing it are racially discriminatory, misguided, and ineffective.

Commentary
12.2.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Attacking gifted education is bad policy and bad politics

Brandon L. Wright

Education for high achievers has come under siege in blue cities and states as the national focus has shifted to racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. But such attacks, even when well-intentioned, are misguided. They target a problem’s symptom rather than its cause, and in doing so, harm students and defy parents.

Commentary
10.14.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Bill de Blasio is decimating gifted education in New York. Will Eric Adams save it?

Brandon L. Wright

Mayor de Blasio is axing New York City’s long-standing gifted education programs. He plans to replace them with something else, but his proposal is almost entirely wrong. Fortunately, Eric Adams, who’s almost certain to replace him in January, has a vision of gifted education that’s mostly right, and he’ll enter office in time to fix de Blasio’s blunders.