Podcast
Governance
The Education Gadfly Show #769: Should we break up behemoth school districts?
On this week’s podcast, Howard Husock, adjunct scholar in Domestic Policy Studies at AEI
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Supporting English learners when students return to classrooms
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The culture wars come for the Nation’s Report Card
Trouble continues at the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), the policy body for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Biden can’t seem to decide whether all young Americans need a postsecondary education. He’s not the only one who’s conflicted.
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.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Cancel culture versus parent choice
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?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How schools can fund and implement strong mental health supports after the pandemic
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?”
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Inaugural PISA data on students’ growth mindset and teaching practices
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).
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance
Don’t let them make you do it, Haley!
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.
Commentary
School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance
Don’t believe the haters. The federal Charter Schools Program deserves full funding.
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).
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Three things to watch for in schools’ post-Covid recovery
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How to pump the Acceleration Imperative up to full speed
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
How parents determine childcare quality
Numerous studies have found that the quality of child care is too low and that we need to do more to
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The bias toward complexity when humans attempt to solve problems
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.
Podcast
Accountability & Testing, Governance
The Education Gadfly Show #767: The fight to get kids back in class five days a week
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Testing, SpaceX, and the quest for consensus
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.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Not all non-traditional schooling is created equal
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.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Public schools must act before it’s too late to promote equitable vaccinations and address hesitancy
We’re more than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, and finally, thanks to the power of science, vaccines are now widely available. But to reach herd immunity—which scientists say requires having 70–85 percent of the population vaccinated—we need to recalibrate our country’s vaccination strategy.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Three important considerations for selecting and implementing an elementary ELA curriculum
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” an open-source, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
High-quality, knowledge-rich curriculum is essential
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” an open-source, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Can teaching be improved by law?
If there’s one lesson education policymakers might have learned in the last twenty-five years, it’s that it’s not hard to make schools and districts do something, but it’s extremely hard to make them do it well.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Uncle Sam goes soft on state tests
Things are getting messy in the world of assessment.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Mentors’ effect on middle school attendance
More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, lost instructional time is top of mind for anyone connected to education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance
The high cost and low performance of online charter schools in California
Full-time virtual charter schools received a great deal of attention as schools scrambled to transition classes online back in the Spring of 2020, and have experienced booming enrollments over the past year.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A different K–12 world: Teens and parents on Covid-19 shock and schools
In the song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan penned an iconic refrain that asks: “But something is happening/And ya’ don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?” That refrain seems an apt way to describe what K–12 education stakeholders are sensing as they reel in response to Covid-19 shock.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How schools can return from the pandemic with strong mental health supports in place
This fall, most students will be returning to full-time, in-person instruction after one of the most disrupted years of their lives. All students will be coming back with varying degrees of adverse experiences. Some may have lost loved ones, had a parent lose their job, seen a parent go through illness, or even been sick themselves.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Reduce class sizes, lengthen the school year, provide tutoring—or let principals decide?
District leaders may be celebrating the $122 billion in stimulus relief Congress approved for K–12 schools last month.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Children learn best when they feel safe and valued
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” an open-source, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Proceed with caution: School reopening and Covid case rate data
School reopenings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic are an ongoing, imperfect work in progress, and the science that school leaders and parents are being encouraged to follow is evolving.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A long overdue look at interdistrict open enrollment in Texas
Interdistrict open enrollment (OE) is something of an enigma in Texas. It’s up to districts whether to open their borders or to keep them closed to non-resident students.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Lessons from Race to the Top
I have been thinking a lot about the early years of Race to the Top recently. I moved to Nashville in 2011 to work at the Tennessee Department of Education. Tennessee had won one of the first two Race to the Top grants with bipartisan legislation and an ambitious plan, and the state had $500 million to invest in innovative support to advance student learning.
