Podcast
Charter Schools
The Education Gadfly Show: Charter schools lift all boats
On this week’s podcast, Nina Rees, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Alliance for Public
Commentary
Charter Schools
Here’s more evidence that expanding charter schools in big cities helps all kids of color, even those who stay in district schools. Are critics willing to rethink their opposition?
For big urban districts, the larger the number of black and Hispanic students enrolled in charters, the more all children or color achieve—no matter what kind of school they attend.
Commentary
Charter Schools
NEW REPORT: Rising Tide: Charter School Market Share and Student Achievement
Plenty of studies have compared the progress of students in charter schools versus traditional public schools. And more than a dozen have examined the “competitive effects” of charters on neighboring district schools.
Report
Charter Schools
Rising Tide: Charter School Market Share and Student Achievement
Plenty of studies have compared the progress of students in charter schools versus traditional public schools. And more than a dozen have examined the “competitive effects” of charters on neighboring district schools.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance
Charter schools point to new ways of racially integrating public schools
The racial integration or segregation of K–12 schools is again a debate topic in education circles. Today’s controversy has a new twist: casting charter schools as the main antagonist to integration, claiming they resegregate public schools.
Podcast
Charter Schools
The Education Gadfly Show: The meaning of Success Academy’s success
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith talk with Robert Pondiscio about his new book on Success Academy.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How two personalized learning models accelerate the progress of their high-achieving students
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to meet standards at their own pace.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How charter school attendance affects students’ special-needs status
Charters schools are often criticized for not enrolling enough or not adequately serving special student populations, particularly students with special needs. A new study by Tufts University’s Elizabeth Setren evaluates this claim with a unique dataset in Boston.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance
The “Upgrade Rule”: How schools and districts can make school closures work better for families
School closures hurt. While they are relatively uncommon nationwide, they are sometimes unavoidable—and they’re always painful, especially for the students and families who are displaced and who rarely see any educational benefit as a result.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
The GAS Factor: Lessons learned at Success Academy
Much of the initial response to Robert’s new book, "How The Other Half Learns," has focused on the winnowing effects of Success Academy’s enrollment process, which ensures that the children of only the most committed parents enroll and persist. But that’s just the start of the story. You have to look at what parent buy-in actually buys: a school culture that drives student achievement, and which can only be achieved when parents are active participants, not unwilling conscripts.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How personalized learning enthusiasts can ensure they aren’t lowering the bar for the kids who are behind
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to master standards at their own pace. See the first post here.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The inextricable links among school choice, school integration, and school transportation
Bellwether Education Partners, long interested in the improvement of school transportation systems, released no less than three papers on the topic this summer.
Book
Charter Schools
How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice
Five years ago, in an op-ed in the New York Daily News, Fordham senior fellow Robert Pondiscio looked at yet another round of jaw-dropping tests scores achieved by Eva Moskowitz’s network of Success Academy charter schools and urged educators and
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance
A new reality for charter schools in California
As part of a national war against school choice, the California teachers union is pouring more than a million dollars a month into anti-charter legislative efforts. Unfortunately, a new “compromise” bill crafted by Governor Gavin Newsom whose language was released this week indicates the union is about to get a big return on its investment. Caprice Young, a Fordham Institute trustee and a leading figure in the state’s charter sector, explains how this painful moment came about—and what it means for California charter schools going forward.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
In most elementary classrooms, kids are all over the map academically. Here’s how two schools cope.
Almost a decade ago, I wrote that “the greatest challenge facing America’s schools today [is] the enormous variation in the academic level of students coming into any given classroom.” Unlike plenty of what I’ve said over the years, this one has stood the test of time.
Podcast
Charter Schools, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
The Education Gadfly Show: Trends in public opinion on choice, testing, and teacher salaries
On this week’s podcast, Martin West, Harvard professor and editor-in-chief of Education Next, joins Mike Petrilli to
Commentary
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance
Pennsylvania’s charter sector needs a scalpel, not a sledgehammer
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Tom Wolf garnered headlines recently when he announced vague plans for taking funding away from the state’s public charter schools.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance
Democratic presidential candidates are wrong: Racist redlining caused school segregation, not charter schools
During a political campaign, the savviest candidates excel at two things. First, they offer a compelling message that differentiates them from their competitors. Second—which demands true skill and sophistry—they ascribe all their own failings to those very same competitors, forcing them to answer for political, policy and social issues for which they are not responsible.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance
The messy reality of school turnaround
Ten years ago, then U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a clarion call to turn around 5,000 of the nation’s most distressed schools, serving nearly three million students. It was an audacious goal set by an audacious leader—the likes of which are in terribly short supply these days. A decade later, states have fallen far short of his challenge, and the sticky problem of failing schools refuses to go away. But experience has provided three lessons to those who would make these efforts.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
The new PDK poll: Gems amid the gravel
For more than half a century now, back-to-school time has brought another Phi Delta Kappan survey of “the public’s attitudes toward the public schools.” They invariably recycle some familiar questions (e.g., the grades you would give your child’s schools and the nation’s schools). Other topics, however, come and go.
Commentary
Charter Schools
The federal Charter Schools Program: A short, opinionated history, part III
This essay is part of the The Moonshot for Kids project, a joint initiative of the Fordham Institute and the Center for American Progress.
Commentary
Charter Schools
Hidden from the headlines
Headlines about colossal mismanagement issues in Ohio charters—the biggest being the ECOT meltdown—dominate the school choice narrative in the Buckeye State. These stories raise the question: Why are Ohio charters so bad? This query and the dominant narrative that flows from it have long provided cover for charter opponents, even as some of the negative coverage is well-deserved. But it’s the wrong question—and it distracts us from a bigger, far more compelling story.
Podcast
Charter Schools
The Education Gadfly Show: What rural Americans think about charter schools
On this week’s podcast, Danish Shakeel, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss how information affects attitudes toward charters in rural America. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines the impact of Boston’s charter schools on students with disabilities and English language learners.
Podcast
Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders
The Education Gadfly Show: The benefits of having a same-race teacher
On this week's podcast, Seth Gershenson, Associate Professor at American University and author of Fordham's latest study, Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss that research. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how the actions of turnaround schools affect teacher mobility.
Report
Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders
Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools
There’s mounting evidence that, for children of color especially, having one or more teachers of the same race over the course of students’ educational careers seems to make a positive difference. But to what extent, if any, do the benefits of having a same-race teacher vary by type of school? Existing “race-match” studies fail to distinguish among the traditional district and charter school sectors. This study fills that gap and finds that the effects of having a same-race teacher appear stronger in charter schools than in the traditional district sector—and stronger still for nonwhite students.
Commentary
Podcast
Charter Schools
The Education Gadfly Show: Will charter opposition come for D.C.?
On this week’s podcast, Jessica Sutter, a newly elected member of the DC State Board of Education, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the politics of Washington’s ed reform scene. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how Philadelphia school closures affect academic and behavioral outcomes.
Commentary
Charter Schools
At the wheel of Idaho’s public charter school program
A willfully one-sided and misguided “study” emerged the other day from something that calls itself the “Network for Public Education” that purports to show that the federal government has wasted a lot of money trying to expand and improve America’s public charter schools. This outfit, which appears to get support from the teacher unions and their fellow travelers, cites several states that, in the authors’ view, have mishandled the money and bungled the program.
Podcast
School Finance
The Education Gadfly Show: Are schools ready for an economic downturn?
On this week’s podcast, Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and a research associate professor at Georgetown University, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to remind schools to prepare for a rainy day, which is likely coming soon. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines students’ reading habits, and which books are most popular from K to 12.
Podcast
Charter Schools
The Education Gadfly Show: Richard Whitmire is all about the B.A.
On this week’s podcast, veteran education writer Richard Whitmire joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss his forthcoming