#909: Rethinking “equitable” grading, with Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey, the national research director and a se
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey, the national research director and a se
If we care about doing educational equity right, we need to call the bluff of those who want to lower expectations for students’ effort “because equity.” Those so-called advocates need to do some of their own homework—and penance—as well.
Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist.
NACSA is honored to feature the report from the Thomas B.
Idaho’s public charter school law turned twenty-five last year. Over that quarter century, the statute has grown warts. It’s also too complicated, burdened by vestigial code and rules, and confusing to schools, authorizers,[1] and state education agencies alike.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Alan Safran, the CEO and co-founder of Saga Education, joins Mike and David to discuss best prac
My students caught me smelling an old book once. While they were silently reading one day, I noticed a tattered book on the shelf. So what did I do? Following deep instincts, I pulled it down, cracked the spine, and breathed deeply. “Mr. Buck, what are you DOING?!” I turned around to find the whole class staring at me.
Many states are overhauling their early literacy policies to align with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge building. Effectively implementing these reforms is crucial, as high-quality reading instruction can improve both academic and life outcomes for children.
Better late than never, New York State has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Assuming the legislature grants the request, here’s how New York could maximize the program’s impact.
As the population of English learners (ELs) in grades K–12 grows, so do the challenges school districts face in identifying gifted students and putting in place appropriate enrichment and acceleration opportunities for them.
Fordham’s latest report, "New Home, Same School," analyses the relationships among residential mobility, school mobility, and charter school enrollment. It finds, among other things, that changing schools is associated with a small decline in academic progress in math and a slight increase in suspensions—and that residentially mobile students in charter schools are less likely to change schools than their counterparts in traditional public schools.
This is the fourth in a series on doing educational equity right.
Equitably funding education in America means providing more resources to students who need additional support.
Because the housing and education markets are linked, evictions and other involuntary changes in residence often force students to change schools at a time when they are vulnerable. But is disrupting at-risk students' education in this manner necessary?
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Douglas Lauen, a professor of public policy and sociology
Khaya Njumbe enrolled at GEO Academies’ 21st Century Charter School, in Gary, Indiana, when he was eleven years old. By age thirteen, he’d become the youngest student in state history to earn an associate degree.
Shortly before schools—and Fordham—shuttered their doors for the holiday break, Tim Daly asked a simple question in these pages: Should schools ban smart phones?
As former teachers in a variety of settings—charter, traditional public, and “transfer” schools—we read with great interest our colleague Daniel Buck’s recent piece, “In defense of the traditional classroom
The education world lost a true reformer on Christmas Day—and the charter-school world lost one of its true heroes—when Linda Brown passed away at eighty-one at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Truancy” may no longer be the right word for it, maybe not even “absenteeism,” for both imply being missing from a place where one is supposed to be. “Truancy,” with its overtone of misbehavior and illegality, suggests willfulness, i.e., that one is intentionally missing, while “absenteeism” is a more neutral term with no suggestion of motive.
A new report from the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice adds to the robust literature on school choice in New Orleans, shedding light on the ways in which the centralized enrollment system in the Crescent City has grown and evolved, as well a
The Covid-19 pandemic created innumerable disruptions to the education system. Among them were challenges faced by teacher candidates trying to complete licensure requirements. In response, those requirements got waived in many places.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Debbie Veney, a senior vice president at the National Alliance for Public
The welcome rise of the science of reading has been a sober reckoning for teachers and administrators. It also raises uncomfortable questions, seldom asked: How much faith should parents have that their child’s school and teachers understand good literacy instruction? And how much do parents need to know to advocate for their children and raise strong readers?
Many futuristic reformers love to hate the classroom.
The results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are in—an international standardized test of fifteen-year-olds and the first look at how countries compare post-pandemic—and the picture they paint of American education is disheartening. Here are four trends that you need to know: 1. U.S. math scores collapsed and reading stagnated.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly. They’re coming for the kids’ phones. Who is “they”?
Despite the amount of attention that school choice receives in the media and among policy wonks, politicians, and adult interest groups, the extent of actual competition in major school districts is not well understood. We were curious: Which education markets in America are the most competitive? And which markets have education reformers and choice-encouragers neglected or failed to penetrate?
Education in the United States needs to improve and evolve. Too many learners get lost in the current system. Even more are underserved or under-resourced.
Once a de facto means of maintaining within-school segregation, career and technical education (CTE) has, in recent years, experienced a favorable shift in public perception.