Displaying 1-30 of 156 results
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.

Commentary
9.30.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

We are squandering the talents of too many low-income high achievers

Aaron Churchill , Michael J. Petrilli

Far too many high-achieving children are drifting through middle and high school. Despite their potential, they don’t end up taking AP exams, achieving high marks on their ACTs, or going to four-year colleges. This limits their ability to move up the social ladder, threatens U.S. economic competitiveness, and derails our aspirations for a more just society. We must stop buying into the false assumption that high-achieving kids will do fine on their own.

Commentary
9.23.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Rigorous courses are a good thing—and good for equity

Brandon L. Wright

“As a broader mechanism for equity, [Advanced Placement] has fallen short, unable to overcome the powerful structural forces that disadvantage far too many students,” writes Anne Kim in a recent long-form article in Washington Monthly titled “AP’s Equity Face-Plant.” “If the ultimate goal

Commentary
7.22.2021
Charter Schools, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Boston is punishing its Asian American community for its educational success

Brandon L. Wright

Boston just approved sweeping changes to the process by which students are admitted to its three highly-sought exam schools. The idea was to free up more seats for disadvantaged children, some of whom have long been underrepresented at the institutions. Yet in one important aspect, the plan may do exactly the opposite: It’s likely to significantly reduce the number of seats that go to low-income Asian American students.

Commentary
7.15.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders

Preparing students of all races to achieve greatness

Ian Rowe

When looking for models of ambitious inspiration, Americans often hearken back to President John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” address at Rice University on September 12, 1962: