Hard as it may be to believe, the Knowledge is Power Program, better known as KIPP, is now older than a lot of the people who teach in its schools.
Nearly all teachers today report using the Internet to obtain instructional materials, and many of them do so quite often. And while several organizations now offer impartial reviews of full curriculum products, very little is known about the content and quality of supplemental instructional materials.
In the latest episode of what promises to be a protracted saga in the Lone Star State, the Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) recently filed a federal lawsuit to halt the state’s takeover of the Houston school district, one of the largest in the country.
Author’s Update, August 5, 2022: Analysis of NAEP demographic data shows that retaining students was in fact not a major contributor to Mississippi’s improved fourth grade NAEP results in the last few years—at least not the way this article suggested.
When the New York City Council moved the other day to require every one of the city’s thirty-two community school districts to develop a school desegregation plan, it was yet one more example of municipal social engineering that prizes diversity over quality and mandatory over voluntary. If families with means don’t like their new school assignments, they’ll simply exit to charters, private schools or the suburbs, meaning that the city’s social engineers will mainly work their will on those with the least.
There’s been a lot of talk about racial equity in Montgomery County as of late.
“It’s like some bullsh-t way to get kids to pass.” That’s the cynical description of high school “credit recovery” programs an eleventh grader gave to the New York Post last year. But cynicism appears to be in order.
The student teaching experience is a crash course in lesson planning, organization skills, and classroom management—and also in learning from and gelling with the teacher who is in charge of teaching you these things. That can be challenging, especially since cooperating teachers (CTs) are recruited in multiple ways, none of which is all that thoughtful or organized.
On this week’s podcast, Kim Marshall, author of The Best of the Marshall Memo, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk about
The words “American Dream” are shorthand for describing an individual’s pathway to opportunity and a successful life. Historically, K–12 schools provide young people with the foundational knowledge and skills they need for achieving success and the American Dream.
On this week’s podcast, Sarah Sparks, a reporter and data journalist for Education Week, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to
The past decade’s shift to significantly higher academic standards and more rigorous assessments means that many more students are now far below grade-level expectations. In recent months and years, there’s been much debate about how best to help such students catch up.
What can be done to rescue failing schools?
Stereotype threat is when people inadvertently conform to negative stereotypes about a group they are in, for example their race or gender. A recent meta-analysis on the effects of stereotype threat has important implications for equity in the education system, the validity of standardized tests, and for teacher preparation.
The bad news from the latest Nation’s Report Card has us analysts wearing out our thesauruses. The good news is that a handful of states managed to make gains or stand pat on the assessment as their peers went backwards. Most noteworthy are D.C. and Mississippi, the only two locales where low achievers made gains. But several other states deserve credit for maintaining their scores in the face of adversity.
In our work with schools at CenterPoint, we often are asked to help design or support the implementation of research-based, high quality curriculum. Almost invariably, discussions with school leaders turn to the connections among and between the core curriculum and the tiered supports for students who are off grade level and struggling to advance.
By the time struggling students reach middle school, it’s pretty obvious it took time for them to get several grade levels behind. It’s also obvious we have numerous ways to help these students. I’m guessing many other submissions to Wonkathon 2019 describe these strategies and approaches. What isn’t so obvious, however, is what’s causing some students to struggle.
National data indicate that approximately three of every five students begin the school year below grade level, with those numbers even higher for low-income students and students of color.
Every year on Veterans Day, we show our gratitude to the men and women who have served our country in uniform. We reach out to a loved one who has served, we thank a soldier in the airport, or we honor them through a variety of free meals.
Editor’s note: This was the second-place submission, out of nineteen, to Fordham’s 2019 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question: “What’s the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind?”
Research and our personal experience tell us that the single most important factor affecting student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. No technology, tool, or other seemingly magic program can help students who are several grade levels behind get back on track and ultimately thrive.
In previous posts and in comments to the media, I’ve been making the case that the lingering effects of the Great Recession might partially explain the disappointing student achievement trends we’ve seen as of late, both on the Nation’s Report Card and on state assessments.
In the last two decades, since states began implementing standardized testing under No Child Left Behind, there has been much debate about the value of those assessments. In Louisiana, where I serve as an Assistant Superintendent, we know measurement of student learning is critical, and tests hold the power to define the academic bar for all students.
Historically, literacy instruction in the United States privileges the privileged. It starts in the earliest grades, when less systematic approaches favored in many early literacy curricula privilege students who arrive at school more comfortable with language and books.
Let me preface my response on the fact that I am I am a mom and a scientist. I dabble in education policy because it has such a profound impact on my household and my community.
During this past summer, Family Engagement Lab facilitated a gathering of parents to discuss parent-teacher partnerships at their elementary school. During the discussion, the group moderator pulled us aside to let us know that a parent was there because her child had been retained a grade and she did not know why.
I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books.
Most everyone has read by now about the dismal scores on our Nation’s Report Card, which again measured how fourth and eighth graders did in math and reading. Aside from fourth grade math, marks on the 2019 National Assessment of Education Progress were generally flat or down, especially for our lowest-performing children. One prominent official remarked that “the bottom fell out.” But the results among high achievers offer a bright spot that has been mostly overlooked and undercelebrated.
With less than a year to go until the 2020 presidential election, Elizabeth Warren’s ascendancy to ostensible Democratic frontrunner, and the release of her voluminously noxious education proposal, I fell into a fever dream of the same stra
A new study published in AERA Open investigates whether and to what extent racial discipline gaps are associated with racial achievement gaps in grades three through eight in school districts across the U.S. It also examines if these relationships persist after accounting for differences across districts.
