Displaying 1321-1350 of 1593 results
Commentary
2.4.2020
Teachers & School Leaders

NEW REPORT: Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement

The Education Gadfly

One indicator of teachers’ expectations is whether they subject students to more or less rigorous grading practices. Unfortunately, “grade inflation” is pervasive in U.S. high schools, as evidenced by rising GPAs even as SAT scores and other measures of academic performance have held stable or fallen. A “good” grade is no longer a clear marker of knowledge and skills. This report examines how teachers’ grading standards affect student success.

Commentary
1.29.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

The endless, rocky path to reading science

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The National Council on Teacher Quality just released its third review of America’s elementary teacher prep programs, seeking to determine, among other things, whether ed schools provide adequate instruction in scientifically-based reading instruction. The first investigation of this question, back in 2013, resulted in most programs receiving D’s and F’s, and just 35 percent earning A’s and B’s. But this year, slightly more than half of traditional prep programs received honors grades. That’s progress. But there are still miles to go.

Commentary
1.29.2020
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Hiding in plain sight: Advancing SEL by tackling today’s urgent problems

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Partisans of social-emotional learning are wont to make their case in utopian terms: Create better learning environments and good things will happen to kids, to academic achievement, to the society in which we live, etc. From the home page of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

Commentary
1.29.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for focusing SEL on social-network building

Tran Le

While education reform conversations about social and emotional learning (SEL) often include the value of interpersonal skills in creating and maintaining relationships, a new report from the American Enterprise Institute calls for increased emphasis on expanding student access to relationships and networks.

Podcast
1.29.2020
Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders

The Education Gadfly Show: School Choice Week 2020

On this week’s podcast, Mike Magee, CEO of Chiefs for Change, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss National School Choice Week. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how teachers who specialize instead of teaching all subjects affect elementary school outcomes.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Evidence-Based Learning

What American education could buy with a larger investment in research and development

Michael J. Petrilli

For R & D to work in education, we must consistently secure funding from governments and philanthropies. That means presenting them with realistic, sensible ideas that can be adopted and implemented at a reasonable cost—both in money and teachers’ time. Fordham and CAP’s Moonshot for Kids competition yielded proposals for several such tools.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Reader’s workshop: The science denial curriculum

Robert Pondiscio

I owe my education career to reader’s workshop, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and its founder Lucy Calkins. I started as a mid-career switcher with a two-year commitment to teach fifth grade in a South Bronx public school. Two things about my school are worth knowing: It was the lowest-performing school in New York City’s lowest-performing district.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

D.C. continues to improve its teacher evaluation system

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Amid all of the hullabaloo over teacher evaluations, fewer states are now using test scores to assess the quality of their teacher workforce.

Commentary
1.22.2020
Accountability & Testing, Governance

School Improvement Grants worked well—at least in these four locales

Jessica Poiner

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 marked a massive federal investment in our schools, with more than $100 billion to shore up school systems in the face of the Great Recession. Along with that largesse came two grant programs meant to encourage reform with all of those resources: Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants (SIGs).

Commentary
1.17.2020
Governance

The real history of school desegregation, from 1954 to the present

R. Shep Melnick

One of the oddest features of the 2019–20 Democratic primary season has been the return of the busing issue. Half a century ago, it nearly tore the party apart. Judicially mandated reassignment of students to achieve racial balance proved to be the most unpopular policy since Prohibition, opposed by overwhelming majorities of white voters.

Commentary
1.17.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning

The top 10 EconTalk episodes on education

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

A few years ago, as I was wrapping up grad school (where my dissertation was about migrant workers in China, of all things), I came across a bunch of fascinating podcast episodes about education policy and school reform.

Commentary
1.16.2020
Governance

Weak board governance weakens K–12 performance

Tom Coyne

After spending most of my forty-year career working on organizational performance improvement, I have learned that some of the most important causes of poor performance are often the least visible.

Commentary
1.15.2020
Charter Schools, Governance

Fresh fuel for the charter school debate

Robert Pondiscio

A mere 6 percent of students are enrolled in charter schools nationwide, but there are sixteen cities in which at least one-third of public school students attend charters. Newark, New Jersey, is one of them.

Commentary
1.14.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Digging in the dirt for quality curriculum

Robert Pondiscio

A recent Fordham report finds that the quality of lessons that teachers get off the Internet is not very good. That’s no surprise but it obscures a bigger problem. If skilled practitioners in any profession feel compelled to scour the Internet for the basic tools of their trade that should concern us more than the quality of what they unearth. The very existence of a “vast curriculum bazaar” sends troubling signals about our general indifference to curriculum’s central role in learning, and our inattention to coherence and what gets taught.

Commentary
1.14.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Why don’t evidence-based practices take hold in schools?

Jeremy Noonan

Education Week’s recent report, Getting Reading Right, found that the most popular reading curricula in the country are not aligned with settled reading science.

Commentary
1.8.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Where R & D and school improvement meet, good things happen

Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham’s recent Moonshot for Kids competition, a collaboration with the Center for American Progress, highlighted the distinction between research and development and “school improvement.” They’re very different concepts. R & D is inherently top-down and school improvement mostly bottom-up. Yet bringing them into productive contact with one another is vital and might be the key to getting student outcomes moving in the right direction once again.

Commentary
1.7.2020
Evidence-Based Learning

Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part II

John A. Dues

There’s a large gap between the current state of education sector R & D and our aspirations for this research. As sectors, education and medicine have lots in common and analogies are often drawn between the disciplines. However, when it comes to evidence-based practices, there are stark differences between the two fields.

Commentary
1.6.2020
Evidence-Based Learning

Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part I

John A. Dues

To be clear, I am in favor of building a strong education R & D sector. However, it’s important to acknowledge the serious shortcomings of the current system. It is because of this current state that I am arguing that evidence-based practices don’t work. I’m making two claims.

Commentary
12.19.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Lessons educators can heed from the grim findings of “The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar”

Morgan Polikoff

Almost all American teachers supplement their core curriculum (if they even have one) with materials they gather from the internet. National surveys show that supplementation is a growing phenomenon, and that many teachers use supplementary materials in large proportions of their lessons.

Commentary
12.18.2019
Teachers & School Leaders

Teacher interactions make a difference in online courses

Pedro Enamorado

Online courses have produced mixed results. They can be good tools for motivated students. But many struggling students use online courses to gain course credit without realizing they aren’t preparing them for college.

Commentary
12.11.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Dear teachers, most of the popular lessons you found online aren't worth using

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

Amazon unveiled a new online “storefront” called Amazon Ignite that will allow educators to earn money by publishing—online, of course—their original lesson plans, worksheets, games, and more. The entry into the curricular marketplace is obviously motivated by a perceived market opportunity—and that’s not wrong. The vast majority of teachers are supplementing their core curriculum or don’t have one to start with. Yet we know almost nothing about the quality of such supplementary materials. Our new study helps fill that void.

Commentary
12.11.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Reading between the lines: What states can do about America’s literacy challenge

Joanne Weiss

In her compelling new book, The Knowledge Gap, Natalie Wexler relates a story about a young girl in an elementary school in Washington, D.C., who, for over ten minutes during reading class, is busy drawing a picture on her reading worksheet. When Wexler asks what she’s doing, the little girl replies that she’s drawing clowns. “Why are you drawing clowns?” Wexler asks.

Commentary
12.11.2019
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

A heroic effort to right the civics ship

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Civics education has been a problem forever, or so it seems, and if that problem feels more urgent today it’s because so many are dismayed by the erosion of civility and good citizenship in today’s America, as well as mounting evidence that younger generations are both woefully ignorant in this realm—check out