Where teacher evaluation went wrong
Editor’s note: This is the third and final part in a series on teacher evaluation reform.
Editor’s note: This is the third and final part in a series on teacher evaluation reform.
Fordham is among a wee group of reformers that’s paid attention to advanced education over the last twenty-five years. This disregard has resulted, among other problems, in a lack of informative research for the field. Our latest report addresses one of many unknowns: whether districts across the nation have adopted policies and programs to identify, support, and cultivate the talents of all students capable of tackling advanced-level work.
More than a quarter of America’s school-aged children were absent from school 10 percent or more of the time last year. There’s no shortage of explanations on offer for this surge in “chronic absenteeism,” mostly blaming the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath: lockdowns; lowered expectation; health and hardship; bullying and school safety issues.
It may seem tone-deaf to focus on layoffs when the news is fraught with reports of teacher shortages, but much as pandemic recovery funds helped drive these shortages by opening new positions to staff, so too will the end of those funds bring about a painful wave of
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Tyner, Fordham’s national research director, joins Mike and David to discus
The state of advanced education in America’s school districts is mediocre. Most districts neglect valuable policies that could expand access and improve student outcomes, resulting in a broken pipeline in advanced education.
Editor’s note: This was first published by EdNC.org. North Carolina’s charter school movement is at a crossroads.
The conflict over civics education is unnecessary, driven more by cultural combatants and politicians than by vast divides among parents and citizens regarding what schools should teach and children should learn. If those who inflame these debates would hold their fire, we could build on a latent accord among the clients of civics education.
When my daughters were preteens, they came home from school one day alarmed. During a lesson on climate change, the teacher or some part of the lesson, it was never quite clear, had basically stated that, absent radical attention to warming, there would be little hope for survivability on earth after 2030. This was during peak Greta Thunberg–mania.
Editor’s note: This is the second part in a series on teacher evaluation reform. Part one recalled how teacher evaluation became a thing.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Joshua Dunn, Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the University of T
Phone bans are the hottest education policy since banning critical race theory. Districts across the country are strictly limiting their use, locking them in Yondr bags, or confiscating and sealing them away before the first bell. The next step in making classrooms conducive to teaching and learning: limiting the laptops.
Noah Smith, writing in his Substack newsletter last week, argues that Americans are imprudently burying their heads in the sand at the increasing prospect of a global Sino-American clash.
Across the country, schools are working to help students recover from pandemic learning losses.
High-quality early childhood education (ECE) offers a promising means of boosting both achievement and equity, yet districts and states across the nation face educator
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly. Are teachers interchangeable parts?
For the past several months, Petrilli been pumping out posts about “doing educational equity right.” This series concludes with a twist by looking at three ways that schools are doing educational equity wrong: by engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations, tying teachers’ hands without good reason, and acting like equity isn’t just an important thing, but the only thing.
Last weekend, I gave a talk at the U.S.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Derrell Bradford, the president of 50CAN, joins Mike and David to discuss a new coalit
To gauge the magnitude of global learning loss during the pandemic, a team at the World Bank examined data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2018–2022, which tests fifteen-year-olds in math, reading, and science.
The school choice movement continues to rack up dramatic wins nationwide. This growth in “educational freedom,” as many advocates now call it, is a fantastic development. But under the surface of these victories, an important debate is brewing: how to balance the drive for maximum choice with other values, including fiscal responsibility and fairness.
In last week’s Gadfly, Karen Nussle and Lorén Cox penned a thoughtful piece on “cross-partisanship,” a concept they explore at greater length in a very nice paper for the Aspen
A recent study in the Economics of Education Review Journal looks at one promising effort to recruit and retain teachers: providing upfront grants and loans to financially-strapped potential teachers to encourage them to become and remain educators.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the America
In a recent Aspen Institute paper, the authors introduce the notion of “cross-partisanship”—two or more sides agreeing on the same policy outcome for disparate reasons—as a modern alternative to bipartisanship, wherein both sides concede something. They argue that adopting this new approach in education policy may be imperative for success—not just for legislative wins, but for the long-term well-being and prosperity of our children and communities.
The closure of schools in response to the seismic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on education worldwide. As nations grappled with closures lasting varying lengths of time, the implications for student learning became increasingly evident.
Editor’s note: A portion of this essay is excepted from the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.<
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Lorén Cox, the policy director for the Education and Society p
Congress is currently considering legislation to update the way that the federal government funds education research and development.
New York City public schools offer two types of gifted and talented education.