In the early days of the pandemic, I was dismissive of “new normal” talk about Covid’s long-term impact on schooling. There was good reason for skepticism.
There is a heated debate going on among school choice advocates, in which the essential question is whether school choice is sufficient to reform American education. The civil disagreement belies a tension within the conservative movement writ large between the libertarians and the institutionalists. But it needn’t be a stalemate. A means to palliate the competing undercurrents can be found in our nation’s very founding.
Divisions about mask and vaccine mandates, in-person versus remote learning, student discipline, and racism and anti-racism in the curriculum will make it difficult for schools to serve anyone well this year.
Reading on a computer screen became a must for millions of youngsters at the onset of pandemic-induced school closures when they lost access to classrooms and library books in school buildings.
The biggest takeaway of our new report, "How to Sell SEL," is that most moms and dads want their children to acquire social and emotional skills and think that schools have a role in making that happen, even as they recognize the key role that they and other family members play. Read more.
In 2020, as we began to look at state U.S. history standards for the first time since 2011, I was concerned about what we would find.
The radio show Marketplace recently ran a piece asking, “Can changing home appraisal language help close the wealth gap?” The story examined structural racism in the housing market, specifically the wealth gap that persists as a result of Black and Hispanic families having t
In states as diverse as West Virginia, Florida,
Many teachers are paid according to salary schedules that reward seniority and degrees earned, the result of state laws that require school districts to follow this rigid compensation scheme.
This report examines parents’ opinions on SEL and pitfalls in communicating about it. It finds overwhelming support for the essence of SEL and its place in schools, but differences by political party and challenges in getting the terminology right.
On June 4, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights asked for information that would help it “support schools in addressing disparities and eliminating discrimination in school discipline and fostering positive and inclusive school climates,” suggesting that something resembling the Obama-era discipline guidance may be reinstated in the near future.
This November, Americans will cast their votes in thousands of local school board races. The stakes couldn’t be higher. These governing bodies will decide how public schools handle hot-button issues like masking requirements and critical race theory.
At its simplest, the belief gap is the gulf between what students can accomplish and what others—particularly teachers—believe they can achieve. It is especially pernicious when beliefs around academic competency are fueled by extraneous information such as socioeconomic status, race, or gender.
Because of how Covid-19 has devastated the U.S. education system, many see this time as a unique opportunity to galvanize state and local education systems to enact large-scale changes. Bellwether Education Partners believes that one such transformation should be how state and local education agencies recruit and retain Black and Hispanic teachers.
“Never in my lifetime have so many parents been so eager for so much education change.” So said longtime pollster Frank Luntz after surveying 1,000 public and private school parents on how the pandemic affected their view of schools.
Public schools have long failed to serve adequately students with disabilities, but school closures, disastrous for the millions of children with special needs, may finally encourage a critical mass of parents to do something about it.
Texas recently became the first state to release state test score data since the pandemic hit.
Earlier this month, President Biden issued a sweeping executive order encouraging federal agencies to undertake a series of initiatives aimed at increasing competition in the U.S. economy. But there’s a mismatch between his approach to competition in the private sector and his support for monopoly when it comes to public education.
Gadfly habitues have seen me grump, criticize, lament and recently brighten over the protract
A recently released report by the Council of the Great City Schools seeks to determine whether urban public schools—including charters—are succeeding in their efforts to mitigate the effects of poverty and other educational barriers.
A recent study in the journal Education Finance and Policy uses quarterly achievement and discipline data on nearly 16,000 seventh through eleventh grade students in an inner-ring suburban California school district to estimate the effect of suspensions on the English language arts and math achievement of non-suspended classmates.
Editor’s note: This was first published by National Review.
When Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter recently announced the city would spend more than $200 million dollars to develop a citywide reading and math curriculum, the smart and obvious take was
Myriad stories have emerged of non-school entities providing strong academic support to students during the pandemic disruptions of the past two school years.
A recent CALDER working paper examined links between teacher preparation programs and the chance that their candidates will enter or remain in the public school system for their first two years post-graduation. Its findings can help school systems improve teacher retention—a problem that many districts face, especially those that mostly educate disadvantaged students.
As discussed in Fordham’s new report, many states aren’t making the grade when it comes to their civics and U.S. history standards, which are often vague to the point of being meaningless.
We’re not even midway through the summer and the start of the new academic year is in some cases just weeks away.
When looking for models of ambitious inspiration, Americans often hearken back to President John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” address at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
