Four VP long shots and their views on ed reform
Last month, I examined nine of the top candidates for Democratic VP nominee and their views on education. The upshot was that there wasn’t much to get enthused about.
Last month, I examined nine of the top candidates for Democratic VP nominee and their views on education. The upshot was that there wasn’t much to get enthused about.
This spring’s school closures have challenged us to look at many things differently and to be open-minded, creative, and brave about moving toward necessary change. As we consider reopening schools in the fall, let’s hold on to that mindset and ask what should special education become? Does the forty-five-year-old federal law (IDEA) need a thorough redo? We believe it does.
As national unrest builds along with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others at the hands of police officers, people worldwide are responding with marches, protests, critical reflection, and grief. Right now, the Black Lives Matter movement rages on.
The start of a new school year is always filled with challenges. New teachers, new classes, and new expectations can be difficult for both teachers and students. But what if teachers and students haven’t been in school for six months or more? How can schools try and prepare to get back to a sense of normalcy after all of this?
A few years ago, a close friend and colleague made a surprising confession. Even though we worked at a charter school network devoted to civic education, she admitted to me that she’d never voted and wasn’t even registered. She felt guilty and hypocritical. How could she promote the virtue of voting to children starting in kindergarten but not vote herself?
In dozens of fields, federally-supported research and development translates into new ideas, technologies, and actions. Why not in education, particularly as the Covid-19 crisis makes it abundantly clear that our educational systems are severely lacking innovative technologies that could have improved the resiliency and flexibility of our classrooms and facilitated a nationwide shift to remote instruction?
Earlier this month, John Winters, associate professor from Iowa State University, released a study, What You Make Depends on Where You Live: College Earnings Across States and Metropolitan Areas, which examined the economic premium of earning different college credentials across all fif
Michael J. Petrilli’s recent article “Half-Time High School may be just what students need” is compelling. Yet proposals to cut school time in half in grades nine through twelve may be only half right.
Most people agree that a college education is a worthwhile investment for a young person. For example, across the U.S., bachelor’s degree holders earn on average 55 percent higher salaries than those with no education beyond high school. However, it is less well understood that there are stark geographical differences in how much return one gets on their educational investment.
When policymakers contend that their standards deserve to be replicated, especially when those policymakers lead big, highly regarded states like Florida, we at Fordham think their claims merit a closer look. So we gathered a team of expert reviewers to review the state's new standards, and published a new report based on their results. The verdict: Other states should indeed look for models to emulate, but they won’t find them in Florida.
In a few weeks, the planning underway for the start of the coming school year could take an interesting and unexpected turn.
America’s schools could learn a lot about how to handle two hot-button issues from Joe Biden’s comments in response to George Floyd’s horrific murder: how to model and cultivate empathy for our fellow citizens, and how to teach an inclusive version of history. He carved a middle path between right and left that is anything but the mushy middle.
On May 21, driven by exquisitely progressive intentions, the regents of the University of California made the worst policy decision in the recent history of American higher education: to eliminate SAT and ACT admissions testing for in-state applicants to all nine of their undergraduate campuses, which comprise one of the country’s biggest and historically most prestigious state systems.
1. Problems with models Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman wrote about models: [Physicists have] learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don’t like a theory is not the essential question.
On this week’s podcast, Michael McShane, the director of national research at EdChoice, joins Mike Petrilli to discuss how Catholic
According to an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal, the election of Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis in 2018 can be credited to African American women who voted to protect tax-credit scholarships and
This week’s podcast guest is John V.
Conservatives are right to be leery of bailing out profligate state and local governments, especially for needs that bear little relationship to—and pre-date—the virus crisis and its economic consequences. A well-crafted bill would base the amount of funding for state and local governments upon an estimate of the actual costs and losses incurred as result of the pandemic. It cannot be a blank check to fund every item on a state’s wish list. But telling states to “make hard decisions” is not going to cut it.
All over the country, states, districts, and task forces of every sort are wrestling with the question of how to safely reopen schools. This scenario planning is daunting, as schools must navigate a minefield of health, safety, legal, and instructional issues, and do so blindfolded by our ever-changing yet imperfect understanding of the virus itself.
With everything going on in the world, one can be forgiven for forgetting that we’re in the midst of an election year. But in 167 days, Americans will decide whether to give President Trump four more years. Joe Biden has essentially locked up the Democratic nomination, so the next big question is whom he will tap to be his running mate.
This week we're hosting "Teacher to Chief," a special episode with members of Chiefs for Chan
Those best positioned to push back against much of the nonsense that courses through our schools are school board members. And those interested in effecting positive change should adopt a three-part agenda: let our schools refocus on preparing children for informed citizenship; restore character, virtue, and morality to the head of the education table; and build an education system that confers dignity, respect, and opportunity upon every youngster.
The coronavirus pandemic has confronted school district management teams with four unprecedented challenges:
The complicated matter of how to help students make up ground when they return to school has two main camps. One wants every student to master key skills before moving on, and the flexibility for teachers to go back and spend time filling in the gaps. The other camp wants teachers to spend most of their time remaining on pace with grade-level material. There’s a way to help catch kids up that takes both into consideration.
As thoughts start turning to reopening schools, there’s been no shortage of advice on what educators need to do to prepare and how they should go about doing it. One emerging piece of consensus is that schools may need to start the school year remotely as part of rolling closures triggered by new outbreaks.
The education policy discussion during the COVID-19 crisis is as raucous as ever. Equity. Learning loss. Online education. These are all familiar fights, and the pandemic has not arrested them.
Secretary DeVos has declined to press Congress to waive major provisions of IDEA, the primary federal law governing the education of students with disabilities. This was the right call, and leaves school districts who have been slow to act facing greater challenges and expenses when in-person schooling resumes.
A crisis—less organic but no less virulent than the coronavirus pandemic—has been raging through the United States for years. Between 1999 and 2016, the rate of drug-related mortality grew 225 percent, due mostly to opioid overdose deaths.
On this week’s podcast, Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director of advocacy and governance at AASA, the School
The financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic is part of a triple threat facing schools this fall: (1) students who are far off track academically and socially; (2) a decline in state revenue that will result in severe budget cuts; and (3) rising costs in response to the pandemic. The silver lining is that the financial pressure could provide cover to enterprising leaders interested in tackling thorny issues like pension obligations that might otherwise have gone unaddressed.