Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
We have spelling bees. Why aren’t there reading bees?
Today, the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Texting parents helps improve student literacy. But how much is too much?
Text-message nudges have been a viable tool in early-childhood literacy in recent years, with parents or guardians receiving occasional missives to encourage specific literacy activities with their children.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Are Virginia’s elementary schools worsening achievement gaps?
A new working paper from researchers out of the University of Virginia uses data from the state’s kindergarten literacy assessment, the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), to examine how the subsequent achievement trajectories of kindergarteners who enter school with similar literacy levels differ by race and/or SES. The findings are worrying.
Podcast
Accountability & Testing, ESSA, Governance, Private School Choice
The Education Gadfly Show #777: O-H-I-O: School reform victories in the Buckeye State
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What parents and teachers think about critical race theory
A new Heritage Foundation survey of more than 2,000 parents and teachers shows significant divides about teaching critical race theory. But there largely is consensus that civics content should focus on the duties of citizenship, not CRT.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
We need better civics education, but it won’t happen anytime soon
Fordham’s new report found that twenty states have “inadequate” civics and U.S. history standards that need a complete overhaul. An additional fifteen states were deemed to have “mediocre” standards that require substantial revisions. This fits the lackluster showing of U.S. students on the NAEP exams in these subjects, and suggests that some schools barely teach this content at all. Unfortunately, the obstacles in the way of improving this sad state run up and down the line.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
How to strengthen U.S. history and civics standards
For our constitutional democracy to survive, much rests on our ability to resolve “…differences even as we respect them,” which is The State of State Standards for Civics and History in 2021 report’s definition of the social purpose of civic education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Dan Willingham’s "Why Don’t Students Like School" stands the test of time. That was the point.
My 2009 copy of Why Don’t Students Like School by Dan Willingham is among the most dog-eared and annotated books I own. Along with E.D. Hirsch’s The Knowledge Deficit (2006) and Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion (2010), I’m hard-pressed to think of another book in the last twenty years that had a greater impact on my teaching, thinking, or writing about education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How gender gaps in math and literacy change as students age
While women have largely erased, and in some areas even reversed, the historic gender gap in educational attainment, some career outcomes can still skew along gender lines.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Proof that it’s possible to approach civics and U.S. history in a balanced way
Is America a racist country? Or the greatest nation on earth? Or both or neither or some of each?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Teaching U.S. history and civics in America’s pluralistic society
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s review of state standards for U.S. history and civics comes at a critical moment in American civic life.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Five pandemic-era education practices that deserve to be dumped in the dustbin
A crisis like a pandemic can spark unpredictable changes in trends and behavior, like widespread mask wearing in the United States. But it also can accelerate changes that were already underway but otherwise would have taken root much more slowly.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Evaluating state intervention in low-performing districts 2011–2016
Across America, states are constitutionally responsible for providing K–12 education, but in practice school districts are the primary structure by which education is delivered. The vast majority of such districts are run by locally elected school boards.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
This simple therapeutic technique would help schools support traumatized students
Over the past several years, schools have begun to reckon with the level of trauma students are dealing with and the effect that trauma has on students’ lives and their ability to learn. An increased focus on trauma-informed models has given leaders the beginnings of a road map to helping affected students be successful.
Commentary
Governance
Reflecting on Fordham’s silver jubilee
At Fordham, we’re not big on grand anniversary galas, the sort of fancy events where organizations toot their own horns and bask in the praise and accolades of longtime friends. We’re not that kind of boastful. But as we get ready to reopen our offices after the long pandemic misery, it’s worth noting that 2021 marks our twenty-fifth anniversary.
Commentary
Commentary
Governance
What we're reading this week: June 17, 2021
“Why ed-tech startups Clever and Nearpod are expected to sell for a combined $1 billion.” —EdWeek A man from Angelus, Kansas, a dwindling town, ruffled feathers by turning a beloved old schoolhouse into a barn.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
President Biden’s $220,000,000,000 “American Family Plan” should also pivot home
Sitting on a Boston city bus, I watched a mother with a young child. For the twenty-five-minute ride, they didn’t speak a word. No “Look at that little girl on the bicycle” or “We’re having pizza for dinner!” When you’re with a young child for that long, do you talk to her?
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Charter schools at 30: Looking back, looking ahead
Today, forty-four states—plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam—have public charter school laws on their statute books, laws that have led to more than 7,500 schools employing 200,000-plus teachers and serving 3.3 million students.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Tennessee’s excellent plan to address unfinished learning
Nearly three months have passed since the third round of ESSER funding was signed into law as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP). These dollars can be used for almost anything under the education sun, and most of them will flow directly to districts, but the limited set aside for states merits attention if only for the staggering scale of Uncle Sam’s total outlay.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Zombie ideas in education
Editor’s note: This was first published in Educational Leadership.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Fast break: Instilling emotional safety and engaged learning in high schools
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
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Partnering with culturally-specific community organizations to provide consistent, expansive, and adaptive mental health services
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
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
SEL for all begins with SEL for educators
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
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The common ground on race and education that’s hiding in plain sight
In the latest skirmishes in education’s never-ending culture wars—the tussles over critical race theory, “anti-racist” education, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom—common ground is there to be found. Here, for example, are five promising and praiseworthy practices that most of us could get behind, regardless of our politics or our views on other issues, while doing a lot of good for millions of kids.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
To address mental health, think systemically about social, emotional, and academic learning
Editor’s note: This was the third-place submission, out of twenty-five, in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question, “How can sc
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A new look at the question of the effectiveness of school turnarounds
Turnaround efforts for low performing schools have been the subject of research interest since their advent in the No Child Left Behind era.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How remote instruction affected learning at the college level
Stories of successful remote teaching and learning experiences during the pandemic are heartening. But more and better data around those successes are required.
Podcast
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Education Gadfly Show #771: Same old, same old: How districts are spending federal relief dollars (so far)
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Choosing “all of the above” serves all
How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction? Question #1: Schools can best address the needs of whole learners coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic by:
