Zombie ideas in education
Editor’s note: This was first published in Educational Leadership.
Editor’s note: This was first published in Educational Leadership.
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
In the latest skirmishes in education’s never-ending culture wars—the tussles over critical race theory, “anti-racist” education, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom—common ground is there to be found. Here, for example, are five promising and praiseworthy practices that most of us could get behind, regardless of our politics or our views on other issues, while doing a lot of good for millions of kids.
Editor’s note: This was the third-place submission, out of twenty-five, in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question, “How can sc
Turnaround efforts for low performing schools have been the subject of research interest since their advent in the No Child Left Behind era.
How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction? Question #1: Schools can best address the needs of whole learners coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic by:
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
The overriding problem with President Biden’s education scheme, as presented in his grandiose “American Families” package, is its focus on more schooling rather than more learning.
Now more than ever, high-ability students from low-income families will need specialized attention and guidance from their parents and teachers. Many less-resourced families have experienced illness or personal and financial instability, and low-income students’ schooling may have experienced long interruptions due to a lack of resources at home.
Two decades into what was supposed to be a two-year public service stint in education, I’ve learned a few lessons as a teacher, a writer, and an ed reformer. They include the following: teaching has to be a job that ordinary people can do well; innovation is an overrated virtue; and there’s no such thing in education as a magic bullet—but there might be magic buckshot. Read more.
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?
Between 1940 and 2018, the number of public school districts in the U.S. declined from 117,108 to 13,551 due to consolidation, whereby smaller districts merged with each other or with a larger neighbor to boost economies of scale in the resource-intensive business of running schools.
Meeting the needs of the diverse and growing number of English learners (ELs) is a pressing challenge for many schools, districts, and charter management organizations. Although many general education programs and curricula do not provide all of the specific supports ELs need, pull-out programs for most students generally do more harm than good.
Trouble continues at the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), the policy body for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Let’s stop denigrating the straight-into-the-workforce pathway for high school graduates. As we were reminded over the past year, so-called “low skill” jobs are critical to society. And they can be their own form of postsecondary education, as young people gain on-the-job skills that will lead to more opportunities and better wages going forward. Read more.
Can parent choice survive the cancel culture that is becoming ever more prevalent on both the political left and political right? What happens when the principles of diversity and choice in schools conflict with either the left’s or the right’s firm view of truth and falsehoods?
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Since 1997, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has tested students around the globe every three years to determine the educational status of fifteen-year-old students in dozens of countries and economic regions that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
You wouldn’t expect a conservative Republican like former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour to turn into a facsimile of Chairman Xi as muzzler of dissent and monitor of communications, but something of the sort has reared its head at the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which Barbour chairs. (He’s a DeVos appointee, and last I looked, those terms run a year at a time.
In the coming weeks, the House Appropriations subcommittee that decides on education spending will consider how much money to allocate to the federal Charter School Program (CSP).
Despite the progress schools and districts have made on returning fully to in-person instruction, some of the habits and apprehensions they’ve developed over the last thirteen months could impede their upcoming education recovery efforts.
Think of Michael Petrilli’s bold ideas and the Acceleration Imperative as newly designed Ford(ham) vehicles for K–12 recovery from the pandemic. Happily, there is much to admire in the showroom.
Numerous studies have found that the quality of child care is too low and that we need to do more to
Problem solving involves a complex set of mental steps, even when it happens quickly. A group of researchers from the University of Virginia sought to test one specific aspect of the process—the types of solutions people consider—and uncovered what could be an important human attribute, with significant implications for public policy.
A suite of technologies that are already widely used in some private-sector testing can and should be embraced by state and national assessments, as well as the private tests that aren’t yet making maximum use of them. Read more.
When we imagine the typical school, at least one from the pre-pandemic era, generally the first thing that comes to mind is a teacher instructing a classroom full of students.