#885: Virtual teachers are back, with Linda Jacobson
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Linda Jacobson, a senior writer at The 74, joins Mike to discuss why more students
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Linda Jacobson, a senior writer at The 74, joins Mike to discuss why more students
Enshrining into policy and practice ideological views on student gender to which a majority of Americans do not subscribe could easily be fatal to support for public education. Indeed, there are no words adequate to capture this level of hubris.
For at least a decade, schools have been using online credit-recovery (OCR) courses to award bogus credits that satisfy graduation requirements, and thus inflating graduation rates.
Ohio recently passed a historic state budget that includes, among other components, ambitious literacy reforms that require schools to follow the science of reading—an instructional approach that emphasizes phonics for building foundational lit
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, William McKenzie, a senior editorial advisor at the George W.
Can we stop with the learning stations already? My teacher prep endorsed them. My first instructional coach trained me in them. Every school that I’ve ever worked at has incorporated them. Look them up on Teachers Pay Teachers and you’ll find scores of activities for various literacy stations, each one promising that they are proven effective.
School systems have long been interested in supporting students’ mental health as a means to improve behavior, decrease absenteeism,
I must admit, I’d become something of an education fatalist. I know the research about direct instruction. I know the power of a knowledge-rich, well-sequenced curriculum and the promise of school choice. I know that individual schools and even whole charter systems can achieve amazing results. But I always wonder: Is it all for naught?
Early College High Schools are designed to be rigorous programs that partner with higher-education institutions to help teens earn college credit before graduation, with the aim of improving their chance of success after graduation.
The use of screens increased substantially during the Covid-19 pandemic. For the twice exceptional population—those identified as gifted with coexistent learning differences like ADHD, dyslexia, Autism, or processing disorders—this “epidemic within the pandemic” resulted in deeper isolation and greater parent frustration.
A remarkable increase in charter school funding across a number of states—and not just red—is finally addressing some of the deepest spending inequities in American education. But with Covid money drying up, declining student enrollment, and an aging population, tougher times lie ahead.
The Indianapolis branch of Teach For America (TFA Indy) was established in 2008, expanding the national organization’s mission—to build and deploy a corps of high-quality education leaders to support high-needs students—into the Hoosier State.
This month, Ohio joined a growing list of states and school systems that require schools to use high-quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading, an approach to reading instruction that emphasizes
Imagine the course of history if some of the most brilliant minds were held back by learning disabilities. Albert Einstein was dyslexic and didn’t talk until he was six. His teachers said nothing good would come of him.
Rather than wait until kids are leaving high school to try to even the playing field, we must start in kindergarten to identify the most academically talented students of all races and backgrounds and give them the support they need to excel.
Nearly two years after federal data indicated that 99 percent of students had returned to in-person learning full-time, as many as one out of three students still haven’t really returned fu
True “accountability” is fast vanishing from K–12 education in the U.S., whether we’re talking about results-driven accountability for schools or performance-based accountability for students. It’s definitely exited from the priorities of today’s reform leaders and policymakers.
You may have heard that conservative parent groups are banning books. From the Pulitzer-prize winning graphic novel Maus, to seemingly anything that addresses LGBT themes, such groups are challenging their inclusion in libraries and on curricula.
In the wake of last week’s affirmative action decision, most analysts expect the recent enthusiasm for test-optional admissions policies to continue—if for no other reason than to make schools’ racial gerrymandering less transparent. Yet the students who will lose most in the process are the very students that these measures ostensibly seek to help: high performing, underprivileged students.
With the liberal arts seemingly in a perpetual budgetary and identity
Recent policy innovations such as education savings accounts, microgrants, and tax credits address some of the financial barriers that prevent families from accessing flexible education opportunities.
In many schools, being identified as advanced or gifted doesn’t guarantee that students will receive “gifted services.” For low-income students, Black and Brown students, rural students, and many others, the odds of being identified as gifted and having access to advanced coursework are even lower than for their higher-income and White or Asian peers.
America’s school choice moment has finally arrived, but the vast majority of students nationwide still attend traditional public schools—and will for the foreseeable future. Conservatives would be wise to support policies that give families choices within the public education system. Cross-district open enrollment does precisely that, and it has strong bipartisan support.
Parents and policymakers inured to years of depressing headlines about learning disruptions in the wake of the pandemic might be tempted to shrug at the latest federal test data on the achievement of thirteen-year-olds as more of the same.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Alia Wong of USA Today joins Mike and David to discuss what’s caus
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.
This month, New York City students received their offers to the city’s eight specialized high schools. As has been the case in recent years, Asian students form over half of the admittees, followed by White, Hispanic, and Black students.
An academic trifle to most, literary theory is a deceptively consequential issue in American education. In English classrooms, students are supposed to encounter great works of literature, sharpening and honing their own view of the world. And so it matters not just what books we choose to read with students, but how we read them.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Nick Colangelo of the University of Iowa joins Mike Petr
One of the most important efforts in America today is making sure we have as large and diverse a group of academic high achievers as possible in order to meet tomorrow’s challenges. A new report released this week—Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners—offers three-dozen recommendations to education leaders and policymakers at all levels on how to accomplish this.