Charters and vouchers: Two peas in a pod
On this week's podcast, Mike Petrilli, Jason Crye, and Alyssa Schwenk discuss how to win charter supporters over to the cause of school vouchers. During the Research Minute, David Griffith examines how No Child Left Behind influenced student behavior.
What we know about school vouchers
On this week's podcast, special guest Matt Chingos, a senior fellow at the Urban In
Three Signs That a Proposed Charter School Is at Risk of Failing
Anna Nicotera, David A. StuitIt’s well established that some charter schools do far better than others at educating their students. This variability has profound implications for the children who attend those schools. Yet painful experience shows that rebooting or closing a low-performing school is a drawn-out and excruciating process.
Leveraging ESSA to Support Quality-School Growth
Nelson Smith, Brandon L. WrightUnder the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal School Improvement Grants program is gone, but the goal of school improvement remains. States must now use seven percent of their Title I allocation for these efforts, but are no longer constrained by a prescribed menu of intervention options.
(No) Money in the Bank: Which Retirement Systems Penalize New Teachers?
A new teacher’s pension is supposed to be a perk. The truth is that for the majority of the nation’s new teachers, what they can anticipate in retirement benefits will be worth less than what they contributed to the system while they were in the classroom, even if they stay for decades.
Undue Process: Why Bad Teachers in Twenty-Five Diverse Districts Rarely Get Fired
Victoria McDougald, David GriffithCountless studies have demonstrated that teacher quality is the most important school-based determinant of student learning, and that removing ineffective teachers from the classroom could greatly benefit students.
Charter Schools at the Crossroads: Predicaments, Paradoxes, Possibilities
Chester E. Finn, Jr., Bruno V. Manno, Brandon L. WrightOver the past quarter-century, charter schools have gone from an upstart education experiment to a prominent, promising, and disruptive innovation in K–12 education. Indeed, few observers present at the creation of the first charter schools could have predicted how rapidly this movement would spread or how thoroughly it would come to dominate the education-reform agenda.
Charter School Boards in the Nation's Capital
Juliet Squire, Allison Crean DavisTens of thousands of individuals across the United States volunteer their time, energy, and expertise as members of charter school boards. Yet as the charter sector has grown, we’ve learned remarkably little about these individuals who make key operational decisions about their schools and have legal and moral responsibilities for the education of children in their communities.
Enrollment and Achievement in Ohio's Virtual Charter Schools
June Ahn, Ph.D.This Fordham study, conducted by learning technology researcher June Ahn from NYU, dives into one of the most promising—and contentious—issues in education today: virtual schools. What type of students choose them? Which online courses do students take? Do virtual schools lead to improved outcomes for kids?
Common Core Math in the K-8 Classroom: Results from a National Teacher Survey
Jennifer M. Bay-Williams, Ann Duffett, David GriffithIn Common Core Math in the K-8 Classroom: Results from a National Teacher Survey, Jennifer Bay Williams, Ann Duffett, and David Griffith take a close look at how educators are implementing the Common Core math standards in classrooms across the nation.
America's Best (and Worst) Cities for School Choice
Priscilla Wohlstetter, Ph.D., Dara Zeehandelaar Shaw, Ph.D., David GriffithMore than twelve million American students exercise some form of school choice by going to a charter, magnet, or private school——instead of attending a traditional public school.
Is Detente Possible? District-charter school relations in four cities
Daniela Doyle, Christen Holly, Bryan C. HasselWhether you think the end game of the current “mixed economy” of district and charter schools should be an all-charter system (as in New Orleans) or a dual model (as in Washington D.C.), for the foreseeable future most cities are likely to continue with a blend of these two sectors. So we wanted to know: Can they peacefully co-exist? Can they do better than that?
Pre-K and Charter Schools: Where State Policies Create Barriers to Collaboration
Sara Mead, Ashley LiBetti MitchelIn Pre-K and Charter Schools: Where State Policies Create Barriers to Collaboration, authors Sara Mead and Ashley LiBetti Mitchel examine thirty-six jurisdictions that have both charter schools and state-funded pre-K programs to determine where charters can provide state-funded pre-K.
Developing School Leaders: What the U.S. Can Learn from England's Model
Mark TonerThe myriad challenges facing school principals in the United States have been well documented, including limited opportunities for distributed leadership, inadequate training, and a lackluster pipeline for new leaders. Recently, the Fordham Institute teamed up with the London-based Education Foundation to seek a better understanding of England’s recent efforts to revamp school leadership.
Building a Lattice for School Leadership
Jonathan SupovitzOver the past decade, the English government has revamped that country’s approach to school leadership. At the center of the reform is the sensible idea that school leadership needs to be a team endeavor. While not a new idea—there’s been for years plenty of discussion about “distributed leadership” on both sides of the pond—the Brits got busy actually making it happen as opposed to jawboning about it. Central to their leadership structure is the formalization of three levels of school leaders, each with distinct roles and responsibilities: headteachers who lead schools (equivalent to the principal’s role in the U.S.), senior leaders or deputy heads who assist the headteacher (similar to the vice principal role in American education but...
The Hidden Half: School Employees Who Don't Teach
Matt RichmondThe number of non-teaching staff in the United States (those employed by school systems but not serving as classroom teachers) has grown by 130 percent since 1970. Non-teachers—more than three million strong—now comprise half of the public school workforce. Their salaries and benefits absorb one-quarter of current education expenditures.
Lacking Leaders: The Challenges of Principal Recruitment, Selection, and Placement
A school’s leader matters enormously to its success and that of its students and teachers. But how well are U.S. districts identifying, recruiting, selecting, and placing the best possible candidates in principals’ offices? To what extent do their practices enable them to find and hire great school leaders? To what degree is the principal’s job itself designed to attract outstanding candidates?
Right-sizing the Classroom: Making the Most of Great Teachers
Michael HansenIn the overwhelming majority of American classrooms, pupils are divided roughly equally among teachers of the same grade in the same school. Parceling them out uniformly is viewed as fair to teachers—and doing otherwise might be seen as unfair. Parents might wonder, too.
Ohio Pension Reform in Cleveland: New Teachers Beware
Robert M. Costrell, Larry MaloneyAt first glance, the recent teacher-retirement reforms in Ohio seem to bring good fiscal news to school systems in the Buckeye State. Thanks to Senate Bills 341 and 342—and a series of cutbacks on retiree healthcare—the Cleveland Metropolitan School District is projected to spend less on retirement costs in 2020 than it does today. But these reforms come at a big price.
Paying the Pension Price in Philadelphia
Robert M. Costrell, Larry MaloneyOne of three technical reports on retirement costs and school-district budgets.
Governance in the charter school sector: Time for a reboot
Adam EmersonWhen charter schools first emerged more than two decades ago, they presented an innovation in public school governance. No longer would school districts enjoy the “exclusive franchise” to own and operate public schools, as chartering pioneer and advocate Ted Kolderie explained. Charters wouldn’t gain all of the independence of private schools—they would still report to a publicly accountable body, or authorizer—but they would be largely freed from the micromanagement of school boards, district bureaucracies, and union contracts. Autonomy, in exchange for accountability, would reign supreme.
Searching for Excellence: A Five-City, Cross-State Comparison of Charter School Quality
Conducted jointly by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Public Impact, the new research study Searching for Excellence: A Five-City, Cross-State Comparison of Charter School Quality sheds light on charter performance — in Albany, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, and Indianapolis. These cities were highlighted because they have relatively large numbers of charter schools and charter school students. These are cities where charters have been part of the educational landscape for a decade or more. Read this exciting report today!
School Choice Regulations: Red Tape or Red Herring?
David A. Stuit, Sy DoanMany proponents of private school choice take for granted that schools won’t participate if government asks too much of them, especially if it demands that they be publicly accountable for student achievement. Were such school refusals to be widespread, the programs themselves could not serve many kids. But is this assumption justified? A new Fordham Institute study—to be released on January 29—provides empirical answers. Do regulations and accountability requirements deter private schools from participating in choice programs? How important are such requirements compared to other factors, such as voucher amounts? Are certain types of regulations stronger deterrents than others? Do certain types schools shy away from regulation more than others?
Strategies for Smarter Budgets and Smarter Schools
Nathan LevensonThis new policy brief by Nathan Levenson, Managing Director at the District Management Council and former superintendent of Arlington (MA) Public Schools, offers informed advice to school districts seeking to provide a well-rounded, quality education to all children in a time of strained budgets. Levenson recommends three strategies: prioritize both achievement and cost-efficiency; make staffing decisions based on student needs, not student preferences; and manage special-education spending for better outcomes and greater cost-effectiveness.
How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Janie Scull, Dara Zeehandelaar Shaw, Ph.D.This timely study represents the most comprehensive analysis of American teacher unions’ strength ever conducted, ranking all fifty states and the District of Columbia according to the power and influence of their state-level unions.
Teacher Compensation Based on Effectiveness: The Harrison (CO) School District's Pay-for-Performance Plan
This report, authored by Superintendent Mike Miles, takes a detailed look at the Harrison (CO) School District 2's Pay-for-Performance Plan. The Harrison Plan confronted the dual challenges of defining an effective teacher and identifying all the things that demonstrate her effectiveness. This how-to guide is meant to serve as a tool and model for Ohio’s school districts.
Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction
Will the move toward virtual and “blended learning” schools in American education repeat the mistakes of the charter-school movement, or will it learn from them? The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, with the support of the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, has commissioned five deep-thought papers that, together, address the thorniest policy issues surrounding digital learning. The goal is to boost the prospects for successful online learning (both substantively and politically) over the long run.
Better Choices: Charter Incubation as a Strategy for Improving the Charter School Sector
Terry RyanIn this policy brief, Public Impact??s Joe Ableidinger and Julie Kowal examine the merits of the incubation model, outline specific strategies for supporting it, and profile organizations around the U.S. putting it into practice. The authors explain that through the strategic recruitment, selection, and training of talented leaders???and support of them as they launch or expand new charter schools???incubators offer charter school advocates an important tool in guaranteeing quality school choice.
Charter School Autonomy: A Half-Broken Promise
Jacob L. Rosch, Dana BrinsonThe typical U.S. charter school lacks the autonomy it needs to succeed, once state, authorizer, and other impositions are considered. For some schools—in some states, with some authorizers—the picture is brighter but for many it's bleak. State-specific grades for charter autonomy range from A to F.