The impact of regulatory flexibility on the teacher workforce in Massachusetts charter schools
One hallmark of charter schools—distinct from their traditional district peers—is flexibility in their HR practices.
One hallmark of charter schools—distinct from their traditional district peers—is flexibility in their HR practices.
As one article at National Affairs put it, the cries about a nation-wide teacher shortage are “heavy on anecdote and speculation” but rather light on data.
Economic connectedness is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility—stronger than measures like school quality, job availability, family structure, or a community’s racial makeup.
In the wake of pandemic-related learning loss, there’s widespread agreement that we must find more time for learning and a number of schools and districts have added afterschool tutoring and summer school to their calendars.
In a new NEPC policy memo, Duke public policy professor Helen Ladd argues that charter schools “disrupt” what she claims are the four core goals of American education policy: “establishing coherent systems of schools,” “appropriate accountability for the use of public funds,” “limiting racial segregation and isolation,” and “attending to child poverty and disadvantage.” Griffith disputes all four counts.
A FutureEd report released earlier this year analyzes the problems facing early childhood education offerings across the country and how some states have tackled them.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with
Recent news articles have heralded a long-term decline in the U.S.
Early in my career, I taught high school in North Carolina. One of the coolest things we did was partner annually with the local Habitat for Humanity team. Each year, students in my school’s construction-trades classes built a modular home from the ground up, doing the masonry, carpentry, electrical work, plumbing—all of it.
Common sense, backed by research, tells us that families weigh a lot of information when making school choice decisions.
With rising college costs and sky-high college dropout rates—almost one-third of American undergraduates quit before completing their degree—young people are lookin
We mourn the passing of Robert D. Kern at 96, even as we recall some of the great good he did—and our encounters with him.
Homework is the perennial bogeyman of K–12 education. In any given year, you’ll find people arguing that students, especially in elementary school, should have far less homework—or none at all. Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy charter schools, has the opposite opinion. She’s been running schools for sixteen years, and she’s only become more convinced that homework is not only necessary, but also a linchpin to effective K–12 education.
What parents are looking for in an ideal school choice scenario is often very different from what they settle for in the real world. Cost, distance, academic quality, safety, extracurricular options, and a host of other factors are all at play, meaning trade-offs are unavoidable. Recently-published research findings try to capture the matrix of compromises being made.
It makes good sense for the federal government to provide grants to high-quality public charter schools seeking to open or expand. That’s the gist of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last month.
This study examines the role that high expectations should play in our nation’s academic recovery and how they operate in the traditional public, charter, and private school sectors.
This week’s news of sharp declines on the National Assessment of Educational Progress gave partisans yet another chance to relitigate the debate over keeping schools closed for in-person learning for much or all of the 2020–21 school year. We conservatives are eager to identify the teachers unions as the primary culprits, and we’re not wrong. But there is one complication we should acknowledge: the curious case of urban charter schools.
A new study released this month by Kenneth Shores and Matthew Steinberg tackles the question of whether federal pandemic relief for public schools was provided in the right way and in the right amount.
On This week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Carissa Miller, CEO of the Cou
High-quality studies continue to find that urban charter schools boost achievement and other outcomes by more than their traditional-public-school peers—an advantage that has only grown larger as the charter sector has expanded and matured. Where the research literature is less clear is why urban charter schools consistently, and increasingly, outperform district schools. Still, it does offer some hints and plausible hypotheses.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jennifer Alexander, Executive Director of the Policy Innovators in Education (
After a tumultuous reception, the Biden administration’s regulations for the federal
For-profit charter schools” are non-profit organizations that contract out some services to a for-profit organization—meaning the schools themselves are not for-profit. This study explores whether such contracting affects school quality.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffit
Credentials matter, but maybe not as much as many hope. That seems to be one of the takeaways from Fordham’s latest report by Matt Giani evaluating high school industry recognized credential (IRC) attainment and learner outcomes in Texas.
Nine percent. That’s how many Black boys met expectations in math in D.C.’s traditional public schools in 2022, down from 17 percent before the pandemic. It’s also how many met those expectation in the city’s charter schools, down from 22 percent. The word “disaster” is used a lot lately, but it is absolutely the right fit here. There are, however, lessons we can learn from this catastrophe.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Karega Rausch, Pr
A new Fordham Institute report authored by University of Texas professor Matt Giani finds that industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) are “mostly not transformative” for the high school students who earn them. But the truth is that it’s all about the context.
The pandemic accelerated a mental health crisis for children and teens that was already apparent prior to spring 2020. It is a serious issue, and schools have expanded mental health services to meet the needs of a greater number of struggling students. At the same time, as we commence a school year in which educators must continue the intensive work of repairing the pandemic’s academic damage, focusing on student emotional wellness does not require relinquishing academic learning.
Whether or not the bipartisan education consensus is dead, one of its most visible and effective reforms lives on: so-called “No Excuses” model schools, institutions famous for their exacting behavioral and academic standards.