Should schools give children more time to play?
The education solar system is endlessly distorted by the extraordinary presence within it of two separate suns with gravitational fields that tug the policy planets in different directions.
The education solar system is endlessly distorted by the extraordinary presence within it of two separate suns with gravitational fields that tug the policy planets in different directions.
In the last decade, states have experimented with many new assessment systems in math and reading. A new Bellwether brief by Bonnie O’Keefe and Brandon Lewis examines recent innovations used or proposed by states that could serve educators well.
When President Trump rescinded an Obama-era directive pressuring schools to adopt lenient discipline policies, almost every major education advocacy organization united in outrage.
On this week’s podcast Mike Petrilli speaks with David Griffith and Adam Tyner about school discipline reform in America, and their new Fordham study of educators’ views on the issue.
The debate over school discipline reform is one of the most polarized in all of education. Advocates for reform believe that suspensions are racially biased and put students in a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Opponents worry that softer discipline approaches will make classrooms unruly, impeding efforts to help all students learn and narrow achievement gaps.
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.
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.
As we wrap up Teacher Appreciation Week, I’ve done some reflecting about my own years as a student. There are teachers who have a lasting impact on our lives and on April 2, I lost one of mine. Mr. Murphy wasn’t just special because of how much knowledge of history and politics was crammed into his brain and shared with all of us, but he pushed us in ways that every student deserves to be pushed. He challenged us to think and come to our own conclusions. He may not have agreed with where we all landed but he sure did love to wave his hands in the air and debate us when he didn’t.
In recent years, we have reached a homeostasis in education policy, characterized by clearer and fairer but lighter-touch accountability systems and the incremental growth of school choice options for families—but little appetite for big and bold new initiatives.
Twenty-five months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration has just unveiled its big school-choice initiative—yes, the cause that, during his 2016 campaign, he termed the “new civil rights issue of our time,” the very same cause that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has devoted her career to promoting.
By Jeremy Noonan
The Education Gadfly
By Tim Daly and Elliot Regenstein
Last April, we published a report by Andrew Saultz and colleagues highlighting “charter school deserts” across the country, or high poverty areas that lack charter schools.
By Dan Goldhaber and Umut Özek
Credit recovery, or the practice of enabling high school students to retrieve credits from courses that they either failed or failed to complete, is at the crossroads of two big trends in education: the desire to move toward “competency based” education and a push to dramatically boost graduation rates.
By Jeff Murray
By Erika Sanzi
By Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli
Eight years ago, we compared states’ English language arts (ELA) and mathematics standards to what were then the newly-minted Common Core State Standards. That report found that the Common Core was clearer and more rigorous than the ELA standards in thirty-seven states and stronger than the math standards in thirty-nine states.
On this week’s podcast, Jim Shelton, who is about to step down from the helm of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s education efforts, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the whole-child approach to personalized learning. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how coaching programs affect teachers’ instructional practices and student achievement.
Since 2010, when most states adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has been committed to monitoring their implementation.
On this week's podcast, Ben Castleman, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, and Ethan Fletcher, a managing director at ideas42, join Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss Ben and Ethan’s collaborative project to improve college access and completion, Nudges, Norms, and New Solutions. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern looks at nudges, too, in this case the role of information and incentives in getting students to fill out their FAFSA forms.
Regardless of where you stand on the debate currently raging over school discipline, one thing seems certain: Self-discipline is far better than the externally imposed kind.
STEM education is, by design, integrative. It strives to emulate the real-world work of engineers within a teaching environment.
On this week's podcast, Roberto Rodríguez, president and CEO of Teach Plus, joins Mike Petrilli and Alyssa Schwenk to discuss race and poverty in education. During the Research Minute, David Griffith examines whether authorizers are making it harder for people of color to win charter contracts.
Louisiana gets a ton of education-related attention, most of it focused on the Recovery School District and the proliferation of charter schools in New Orleans. While these reforms are certainly worth a close look, it’s the state’s quieter efforts on curriculum that may be truly changing the game for students and teachers.
Schools have long failed to cultivate the innate talents of many of their young people, particularly high-ability girls and boys from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. This failure harms the economy, widens income gaps, arrests upward mobility, and exacerbates civic decay and political division.
The state board of education voted today to recommend that the General Assembly extend previously-relaxed graduation requirements for the class of 2018 to the classes of 2019 and 2020.
In case you missed it during the hustle and bustle of the holidays, Ohio recently announced how students can earn a new endorsement on their high school diplomas.