NWEA measures the impact of the pandemic on student achievement and growth
Researchers at NWEA have been using data from their MAP Growth assessments to predict and analyze learning losses since the start of the pandemic.
Researchers at NWEA have been using data from their MAP Growth assessments to predict and analyze learning losses since the start of the pandemic.
The past eighteen months have been some of the most tumultuous in the history of our nation. The twin pandemics of Covid-19 and social injustice have highlighted how today’s students face very different expectations than students encountered in previous generations.
Parents across the country are up in arms over their school systems’ equity initiatives. To be clear, this is not “equity” as I came to define it when I started teaching nearly a quarter century ago.
In 2020, as we began to look at state U.S. history standards for the first time since 2011, I was concerned about what we would find.
The radio show Marketplace recently ran a piece asking, “Can changing home appraisal language help close the wealth gap?” The story examined structural racism in the housing market, specifically the wealth gap that persists as a result of Black and Hispanic families having t
At its simplest, the belief gap is the gulf between what students can accomplish and what others—particularly teachers—believe they can achieve. It is especially pernicious when beliefs around academic competency are fueled by extraneous information such as socioeconomic status, race, or gender.
Texas recently became the first state to release state test score data since the pandemic hit.
Gadfly habitues have seen me grump, criticize, lament and recently brighten over the protract
A recently released report by the Council of the Great City Schools seeks to determine whether urban public schools—including charters—are succeeding in their efforts to mitigate the effects of poverty and other educational barriers.
As discussed in Fordham’s new report, many states aren’t making the grade when it comes to their civics and U.S. history standards, which are often vague to the point of being meaningless.
Gone are the days when we could all agree with Ben Franklin’s sunny admonition: “Indeed the general tendency of reading good history must be, to fix in the minds of youth deep impressions of the beauty and usefulness of virtue of all kinds.” Instead, we must cope with political polarization, schools preoccupied with the achievement gap, students who learn from social media, and adults who are t
The prolonged fracas within and far beyond the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) concerning a new “framework” for NAEP’s future assessment of reading has been ominous on several fronts—as I haven’t hesi
A new working paper from researchers out of the University of Virginia uses data from the state’s kindergarten literacy assessment, the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), to examine how the subsequent achievement trajectories of kindergarteners who enter school with similar literacy levels differ by race and/or SES. The findings are worrying.
I’ve taught U.S. history to high schoolers for almost twenty years, during which time I’ve worked in multiple states with students of varying personal and cultural backgrounds. Below are the five things that I think I’ve learned. 1) Our students need more exposure to U.S. history.
Fordham’s new report found that twenty states have “inadequate” civics and U.S. history standards that need a complete overhaul. An additional fifteen states were deemed to have “mediocre” standards that require substantial revisions. This fits the lackluster showing of U.S. students on the NAEP exams in these subjects, and suggests that some schools barely teach this content at all. Unfortunately, the obstacles in the way of improving this sad state run up and down the line.
For our constitutional democracy to survive, much rests on our ability to resolve “…differences even as we respect them,” which is The State of State Standards for Civics and History in 2021 report’s definition of the social purpose of civic education.
Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Or both or neither or some of each?
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s review of state standards for U.S. history and civics comes at a critical moment in American civic life.
Across America, states are constitutionally responsible for providing K–12 education, but in practice school districts are the primary structure by which education is delivered. The vast majority of such districts are run by locally elected school boards.
A trio of researchers from the University of Chicago, MIT, and UC Berkeley recently released a working paper that indicates a multitude of positive long-term effects—very long term, in fact—associated with attendance at public preschool.
Editor’s note: This was first published in Educational Leadership.
Turnaround efforts for low performing schools have been the subject of research interest since their advent in the No Child Left Behind era.
Editor’s note: This was the second-place submission, out of twenty-five, in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question, “How can schools best address students’ mental-health needs coming out of the
In 1908, the Ford Motor Company unveiled the Model T and introduced a reliable, affordable automobile for the middle class. While revolutionary, the Model T also took twelve hours and 7,882 tasks to assemble 1,481 parts, and increased production time meant increased costs. In 1913, Ford introduced an assembly line and cut production to ninety-three minutes.
As U.S. schools reopen in the fall, a year and a half after nearly all of them closed due to the pandemic panic, what should be different? What needs to change if kids are actually to catch up? What’s important to retrieve from pre-Covid days? And what other changes, changes that should have been made pre-Covid, is there now a rare opportunity to initiate?