In the mid-1970s, Ference Marton and Roger Säljö of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden noticed that their students took different approaches to learning.
To gauge the magnitude of global learning loss during the pandemic, a team at the World Bank examined data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2018–2022, which tests fifteen-year-olds in math, reading, and science.
The school choice movement continues to rack up dramatic wins nationwide. This growth in “educational freedom,” as many advocates now call it, is a fantastic development. But under the surface of these victories, an important debate is brewing: how to balance the drive for maximum choice with other values, including fiscal responsibility and fairness.
Last week, I did something unorthodox. I asked teachers to message me directly via X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their frustrations. Within hours, I received almost 200 messages expressing not only frustration, but also hope, humor, fatalism, and quite a bit of hesitancy to converse with a complete stranger on the internet.
In last week’s Gadfly, Karen Nussle and Lorén Cox penned a thoughtful piece on “cross-partisanship,” a concept they explore at greater length in a very nice paper for the Aspen
A recent study in the Economics of Education Review Journal looks at one promising effort to recruit and retain teachers: providing upfront grants and loans to financially-strapped potential teachers to encourage them to become and remain educators.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the America
In a recent Aspen Institute paper, the authors introduce the notion of “cross-partisanship”—two or more sides agreeing on the same policy outcome for disparate reasons—as a modern alternative to bipartisanship, wherein both sides concede something. They argue that adopting this new approach in education policy may be imperative for success—not just for legislative wins, but for the long-term well-being and prosperity of our children and communities.
The closure of schools in response to the seismic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on education worldwide. As nations grappled with closures lasting varying lengths of time, the implications for student learning became increasingly evident.
Editor’s note: A portion of this essay is excepted from the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.<
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Lorén Cox, the policy director for the Education and Society p
Congress is currently considering legislation to update the way that the federal government funds education research and development.
New York City public schools offer two types of gifted and talented education.
The findings of Fordham’s latest report, "Do Authorizer Evaluations Predict the Success of New Charter Schools?" suggest at least three takeaways: authorizers should pay close attention to applicants’ education and financial plans; should incorporate multiple data sources and perspectives; and must continue to hold approved schools accountable for their results.
This is the eighth in a series on doing educational equity right.
The hits just keep on coming: Earlier this month, a motley crew of former Colorado lawmakers helped spur the introduction of a grotesque piece of legislation aimed squarely at dismantling the state’s
When the TV salesman pitches a beauty product to eliminate wrinkles or a politician promises no new taxes, most of us raise a skeptical eyebrow. If only we afforded that same skepticism to education fads.
For many students and teachers, the pivot from in-person to remote learning in March 2020 was a sudden lurch from the known to the unknown. Writ large, research shows the academic impact of that move was devastating. But details matter—and so do exceptions.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.
Many of the conditions that led to the prominence of “no-excuses” charter schools a quarter-century ago have returned. For students, teachers, and parents who have never lost their appetite for safe and orderly schools, it can’t come soon enough.
It’s looking like this year’s election will feature a Trump-Biden rematch—a pairing that’s especially frustrating for education, where the nation is wrestling with a raft of real problems:
I recently watched a seventh-grade math lesson that did a better job than I ever did as a teacher asking kids relatable theoretical probability questions. How would you represent the probability of a six-foot-tall seventh grader? How would you represent the probability of getting a test in school in any given week? Making sense of where students were coming from was a fascinating puzzle.
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
The way we grade student work is flawed—in some ways inequitable—and is in need of reform. But like so many things in American education, the push for “equitable grading” has often been implemented piecemeal, bringing along with it all manner of unintended consequences, the most important of which is lowered standards.
Late last year, researchers Sarah Cohodes and Susha Roy partnered with the MIT Department of Economics to release a paper summarizing the results of lottery-based charter studies. The topline conclusion is straightforward and promising:
Neither of the major parties’ presumptive presidential nominees has anything serious in the offing to help American students get back on track.
School choice discussions often overlook intradistrict open enrollment, allowing students to attend any public school within their resident district.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike Miles, the superintendent of Houston ISD, joins Mike and David to discuss the reforms he’s impl
There are, generally speaking, two ways to report students’ performance on tests. One is normative, and it compares a student’s performance to his peers. The second is criterion, and it compares a student’s performance to learning standards, indicating grade-level proficiency and is independent of peers’ test performance.
The push for more “equitable” grading policies has exacerbated grade inflation while yielding little evidence of greater learning. Some aspects of traditional grading can indeed perpetuate inequities, but top-down policies that make grading more lenient are not the answer, especially as schools grapple with the academic and behavioral challenges of the post-pandemic era.
