Education Gadfly Show #822: Checker Finn: Why we need—and need to improve—NAEP
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn, the Fordham Institute’s president emeritus and a distinguished seni
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Checker Finn, the Fordham Institute’s president emeritus and a distinguished seni
In my work on the teaching staff of a master’s level class in public policy, I am regularly dismayed by how often our students propose only governmental solutions to public problems.
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Few people in education reform have had greater impact than Kate Walsh, who recently handed over the reins of the National Council on Teacher Quality, which she led for twenty years. No one has done more to make raising the level of teacher preparation a focus of reform efforts. Here, Robert Pondiscio talks to her about her past, the present, and her views on what’s to come.
Last week, I provided sobering evidence of the “excellence gap” among twelfth grade students—the sharp divides along lines of race and class in achievement at the highest levels.
Many state teacher pension systems are woefully underfunded, impose significant costs on teachers and schools, and shortchange tho
Calls are rising for America’s aging high-school model to modernize, in part by accommodating work experience through hands-on internships or actual employment for students.
Scholars and testing companies have been following grade inflation for decades. The first ACT study on the topic dates to the mid-1990s, while researchers have used SAT data to study grade inflation since the 1970s.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera discusses
America’s education system suffers from a variety of “excellence gaps”—sharp disparities in performance by race and class at the highest levels of academic achievement. These gaps explain why college administrators turn to various forms of affirmative action in order to create freshmen classes that more closely represent the nation’s diversity—actions that may soon be declared unconstitutional. But when do these gaps start?
As I write this, representative samples of fourth and eighth graders are taking National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in math and English.
The proposed California Mathematics Framework generated a storm of controversy when the first draft was released in early 2021. Critics objected to the document’s condemnation of tracking and negative portrayal of acceleration for high-achieving students.
Reams of research have reported contradictory outcomes for students with disabilities (SWDs) who are taught in general education classrooms alongside their non-disabled peers versus learning in settings with only SWDs. A new report focuses on teacher certification as a possible mechanism to explain the variations in outcomes.
Throughout the pandemic, we encountered much speculation about the impact that remote learning would have on student performance. The expected learning loss was a concern not just of American parents and educators, but of citizens all around the world.
NAEP is by far the country’s most important source of information on student achievement, achievement gaps and so much more, even though it’s invisible to most Americans. Yet NAEP is far from perfect—and could do so much more than it does. It’s time to wrestle with its challenges, shortcomings, and possible future scenarios.
Georgia is the latest on a growing list of states that make financial literacy courses a requirement for high school graduation.
Should public schools strive to teach character to students? One group in Texas says no.
One common refrain in debates around education is that standardized exams negatively impact applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Just over thirty years ago, the first public charter school law was passed in Minnesota. One year later, City Academy Charter School opened its doors in St. Paul. The charter sector now boasts more than 7,700 schools serving over 3.4 million students nationwide.
How do we see whether achievement gaps between groups of students are widening or narrowing? How can we tell whether eighth graders in Missouri do better or worse in math than their peers in Michigan and Maine? We wouldn’t know these things or much else about K–12 achievement in America without a little-known but vital test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. “NAEP” or the “Nation’s Report Card.” Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP, authored by veteran education participant/analyst Chester E. Finn, Jr., examines the history of NAEP, the issues and challenges that it faces today, and ways to strengthen and modernize it for the future.
The money is pouring in, but so are the education challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically affected student achievement, particularly for poorer students and students of color.
Last week came news that more than 40 percent of math textbooks submitted for review in Florida were deemed incompatible with state standards or contained “prohibited topics” including reference
With schools and districts across the nation said to be reeling from staffing shortages, calls for action are loud and insistent.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Kate Walsh, who just finished a twenty-year run leading the National Counci
The nationwide surge in violent crime, which preceded the pandemic but accelerated in 2020, has prompted a range of policy responses, from expanding
How do we know whether kids in Pennsylvania are better or worse readers at the end of middle school than their peers in Colorado? We wouldn’t know that or much else without a test that may have escaped your notice altogether, unless you’re some sort of education-obsessed policy maker or policy wonk like me. I’m talking about the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Veteran education watchers may remember the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, which for more than a quarter century took the temperature of the nation’s teaching workforce on issues pertaining to job satisfaction, pay, and prestige.
In-person instruction has been restored everywhere in the United States, and the nation’s schools once again find themselves dealing with the age-old battle of children against authority—although now it is frequently erupting into violence and threats against teachers.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jing Liu, Assistant Professor in Education Policy at the University of Maryla
For many parents and teachers, the Covid experience has confirmed at least two pieces of common sense: It’s hard for kids to learn if they’re not in school, and those who are in school tend to learn more.