Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Why and how leaders should tackle teacher wellness
The mental health crisis has been a persistent headline over the last few years, as research and
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Do multi-tiered systems of support improve student behavior?
School systems across the country are training teachers in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to tackle issues like social emotional learning, mental health, and behavioral interventions.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How states leaders can expand and support youth apprenticeships
The Covid-19 pandemic altered public confidence in education and left lasting shortages in the workforce. Youth unemployment rates are recovering, but young people are still in need of job opportunities that will create lasting wealth and opportunities for further education.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Lax school discipline is bad for teachers
Teachers’ authority in the classroom is being undermined by policies of “restorative justice”—a non-punitive approach to discipline. But the predictable albeit unintended consequence of these well-meaning policies is that disruptive students get away with previously unacceptable behavior. Outbursts of student vulgarity and incidence of violence have become normalized as something teachers and other students have to endure.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Gifted students need a “continuum of services” now more than ever
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
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Impacts of charter school growth on school and neighborhood diversity
Student demographics in traditional district schools largely reflect patterns of housing availability and affordability within neighborhoods. Much of that is due to strict attendance zoning.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
More evidence that making school easier does students no favors
It’s one of those zombie mantras that just won’t die: Letting students cut corners, giving them grades they haven’t earned, and generally lowering the bar is a nice thing to do for vulnerable kids—those living in poverty, often with turbulent home lives or mental health struggles to boot.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
An interview with Janet Kragen, who taught gifted education for four decades
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
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The problem with “differentiation”
Shouldn’t we all seek to individualize instructions to meet each child’s needs? Who could oppose “differentiation”? Well, I do.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Biden’s misguided guidance on discipline for students with disabilities
Last week, the Biden administration released new guidance for how schools should handle discipline for students with disabilities.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
When students feel unsafe, absenteeism grows
School shootings are profoundly tragic—scarring not only the families whose children become victims, but casting a shadow over the lives, mental health, and outcomes of the surviving students. But evidence is also clear that it’s not only horrific mass shootings that can lead a child to miss school. Any feeling of not being safe can prompt children and teenagers to stay home.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The American family is still coming apart
In 2004, the late Sara McLanahan published a landmark article called “Diverging Destinies: How Children Are Faring Under the Second Demographic Transition.” The paper was the first scholarly attempt to propose that the decline of the two-parent family in the United States since the 1960’s was intensifying the already unequal l
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
In a time of crisis, Catholic schools offered a choice, not an echo
“New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected,” the Economist tweeted recently to promote a
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The bravest man in education reform
A few years ago, when I was writing my book about Success Academy and school choice, I had a moment of self-doubt bordering on despair.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Balancing equity and excellence in selective high schools
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
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How do teachers spend their time?
One of my favorite quotations comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. When Gandalf the wizard recounts the story of the ring and the havoc that it has brought to Middle-earth to the hero Frodo, Frodo says to him, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” To which Gandalf replies, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Gifted-student screenings often miss poor students who should qualify
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
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Can we revive standards-based reform?
Few people have done more to boost academic standards in U.S. schools than Michael Cohen and Laura Slover, coauthors of a new paper offering a bright vision for revitalizing them. But there are reasons to doubt the feasibility of its proposals.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Relinquishment or instructional coherence: What’s the right goal for districts?
The “tripod” of standards, testing, and accountability has taken a real beating in recent years, following decades in which it was accepted dogma within reform circles.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Stop neglecting gifted students’ social and emotional needs
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
Podcast
Advanced Education
The Education Gadfly Show #828: Arizona’s expanded ESA: The big enchilada of school choice
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Matt Beienburg, Director of Education Policy
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
The swirling private-school universe
The universe of private elementary-secondary schooling in America today is diverse and confusing, with innumerable twists and turns in efforts to use public funds to help families access schools that suit them—including private schools of all colors and stripes. But the virtue of these institutions is that they’re different, which also means very different from each other. Which complicates the quest to deploy public dollars to assist families to choose them.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
On the persistence of the achievement gap
I read Mike Petrilli’s very interesting article “How to narrow the excellence gap in early elementary school” in Fordham’s June 2 Education Gadfly Weekly.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Does keeping students with the same teacher for multiple years boost outcomes?
The relationship between teacher and student has profound effects on learning. A new study explores whether schools can strengthen this relationship over time by keeping students with teachers for more than one year.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Hope and progress for gifted education
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.
Podcast
Advanced Education
The Education Gadfly Show #827: The debate over “no zeroes” grading policies
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, a teacher and a Fordham senior visiting fellow, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss “
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Building better evidence on pre-K by strengthening assessments of children’s skills
Research has found that high-quality pre-K programs can have positive impacts on children’s learning and development, improving outcomes like literacy and math skills in the short-term and even increasing
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching virtue in the digital age
Because of social media’s well-documented risks and harms, we must teach teens to exercise good practical judgment in the challenging circumstances of the online spaces they will need to navigate in our digital age. Parents play an important role. But so should schools, which ought to develop curricula that model how to interact online in ways that meet their general standards and expectations of their student’s social lives.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Exit interview: Carey Wright, Mississippi’s State Superintendent of Education
One of the most unlikely education stories of the last decade has been the rise of Mississippi as a star of NAEP and a science of reading proof point. When looking for models to follow, researchers and policy wonks usually point to places like Shanghai and Finland, even Massachusetts. But Mississippi? Who saw that coming?
