#883: The student behavior crisis, with Daniel Buck
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, Fordham’s editorial and policy associate, joins Mike and David to discuss the be
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, Fordham’s editorial and policy associate, joins Mike and David to discuss the be
I must admit, I’d become something of an education fatalist. I know the research about direct instruction. I know the power of a knowledge-rich, well-sequenced curriculum and the promise of school choice. I know that individual schools and even whole charter systems can achieve amazing results. But I always wonder: Is it all for naught?
Early College High Schools are designed to be rigorous programs that partner with higher-education institutions to help teens earn college credit before graduation, with the aim of improving their chance of success after graduation.
A remarkable increase in charter school funding across a number of states—and not just red—is finally addressing some of the deepest spending inequities in American education. But with Covid money drying up, declining student enrollment, and an aging population, tougher times lie ahead.
Not since former Governor Scott Walker bludgeoned the unions in my home state of Wisconsin has there been such national outrage over state-level education policies. Historically, state-scale education has been a secondary affair, rarely topping the list of people’s substantive or political priorities, and most decisions have been left to local decision-making.
Is Mississippi a cheater? Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik seems sure of it. Last month, the Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion writer published a column saying that Mississippi’s widely acclaimed reading improvement was just a mirage.
School closure is among the most heavy-handed interventions for turning around chronically underperforming schools.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Aaron Churchill, Fordham’s Ohio research director, joins
One of the biggest shifts in education in recent years has been a gradual move away from the “college for all” mantra, and hard numbers show a concurrent decline in the proportion of high school students matriculating directly to college. Far from something to deplore, this trend is a positive development—but only so long as the right teenagers are choosing to enter the labor market rather than pursue college.
This month, Ohio joined a growing list of states and school systems that require schools to use high-quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading, an approach to reading instruction that emphasizes
Stand Up Blue Valley is a pro-public-education parents’ association in Overland Park, Kansas (a large suburb of Kansas City) with a reputation for milquetoast advocacy promoting local control, informed voting, and opposition to school choice.
Rather than wait until kids are leaving high school to try to even the playing field, we must start in kindergarten to identify the most academically talented students of all races and backgrounds and give them the support they need to excel.
In the latest issue of Education Next, James Peyser argues that “overpromising” undercut the ed reform movement, in which he played a prominent role for three decades in a series of roles—from education advisor to two governors to chairman of the State Board of Education
Nearly two years after federal data indicated that 99 percent of students had returned to in-person learning full-time, as many as one out of three students still haven’t really returned fu
For folks who question the value of a traditional four-year college degree—whether they have done so for ages or have only recently lost faith—apprenticeships seem like a promising alternative for young people leaving
State-level school finance reforms and, to a lesser extent, increases in federal funding for schools have worked: America’s shamefully persistent inequities in school funding are finally a thing of the past. School funding is now generally progressive, meaning that students from poor families typically attend better-funded schools than students from wealthier families in the same state.
Editor's note: Read more about this topic in Finn's essay in National Affairs, "The Accountability Challenge."
You may have heard that conservative parent groups are banning books. From the Pulitzer-prize winning graphic novel Maus, to seemingly anything that addresses LGBT themes, such groups are challenging their inclusion in libraries and on curricula.
In the wake of last week’s affirmative action decision, most analysts expect the recent enthusiasm for test-optional admissions policies to continue—if for no other reason than to make schools’ racial gerrymandering less transparent. Yet the students who will lose most in the process are the very students that these measures ostensibly seek to help: high performing, underprivileged students.
Recent policy innovations such as education savings accounts, microgrants, and tax credits address some of the financial barriers that prevent families from accessing flexible education opportunities.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Jim Peyser joins Mike to discuss education
America’s school choice moment has finally arrived, but the vast majority of students nationwide still attend traditional public schools—and will for the foreseeable future. Conservatives would be wise to support policies that give families choices within the public education system. Cross-district open enrollment does precisely that, and it has strong bipartisan support.
Parents and policymakers inured to years of depressing headlines about learning disruptions in the wake of the pandemic might be tempted to shrug at the latest federal test data on the achievement of thirteen-year-olds as more of the same.
Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.
Standardized tests and test-based accountability have come under serious criticism in recent years. One of the most important questions is whether improving student learning, as measured by test scores, helps improve students’ opportunities later in life. It’s a tough issue to study, but the weight of the evidence says: yes.
While national school-choice advocates crow about recent legislative victories in states like Iowa, Utah, South Carolina, and West Virginia, setbacks and struggles simmer in Illinois, Montana, and Idaho.
This month, New York City students received their offers to the city’s eight specialized high schools. As has been the case in recent years, Asian students form over half of the admittees, followed by White, Hispanic, and Black students.
It should be common knowledge by now that all charter schools—like all district schools and, for that matter, all private schools—are not created equal. Nor do they produce equal outcomes.
One of the most important efforts in America today is making sure we have as large and diverse a group of academic high achievers as possible in order to meet tomorrow’s challenges. A new report released this week—Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners—offers three-dozen recommendations to education leaders and policymakers at all levels on how to accomplish this.
Recent shifts in enrollment patterns across Texas school sectors have gone in one direction—out of traditional public schools. Within those shifts, a disproportionately large swath of students has left for classical charter schools. These trends reflect a wider renaissance of classical schooling across the United States.