Displaying 31-60 of 1066 results
Abandoned school playground
Commentary
9.26.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities, Governance

With student enrollment plummeting, which schools should be considered candidates for closure?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

Forcing students to switch schools can be traumatic and even harmful. Yet closing an underenrolled school can also be beneficial when displaced students land in better alternatives, and when it ensures that innumerable children in future generations are well-served. But how should policymakers identify which schools should be candidates for closure? Our latest study offers some answers.

Abandoned school playground
Food spread
Commentary
9.26.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

The “à la carte education” accountability conundrum

Michael J. Petrilli, Devon Nir

Of the school choice options available to many U.S. families today, few embody the spirit of “power to the parents” quite like education savings accounts (ESAs).

Food spread
Houston, Texas
Commentary
9.26.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The Texas-sized surge in uncertified teachers

Dale Chu

Houston’s local ABC news affiliate recently ran a report that the Houston Independent School District, Texas’s largest, has more than 2,000 uncertified teachers (out of a teaching force of approximately 10,000).

Houston, Texas
Working repairing a roof
Commentary
9.26.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities, School Finance, Governance

Does spending on school facilities raise student test scores?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Schools across the country spend billions of dollars each year on the construction and renovation of their facilities—everything from roof repairs to new science labs and from classroom expansions to whole new buildings. How do these expenditures impact students and the taxpaying community around schools?

Working repairing a roof
Virginia welcome sign
Commentary
9.25.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

Most schools in America are off track. Virginia is no different.

Michael J. Petrilli

Governor Glenn Youngkin is under fire again from Virginia’s education establishment, this time because a new school accountability system his administration is promoting refuses to put lipstick on a pig.

Virginia welcome sign
Kamala Harris
Commentary
9.19.2024
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What Kamala Harris should do on education and training

Bruno V. Manno

Kamala Harris’s presidential acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention promised Americans “an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and the chance to succeed.” But working-class Americans are glum about their economic position today and what this promise means for them.

Kamala Harris
Empty classroom
Commentary
9.19.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Repeating history: Long-term economic impact of disrupted school years

Jeff Murray

As school systems around the world continue trying to recover from learning losses caused by the pandemic, a new paper out of Germany gives us some historic context on what to look for and what to be wary of.

Empty classroom
Cassette tape
Commentary
9.12.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

When was American education’s best decade? And how can we tell?

Michael J. Petrilli

This summer, the Washington Post’s (fantastic) “Department of Data” columnist, Andrew Van Dam, ran a fun feature about “America’s best decade,” according to public opinion.

Cassette tape
Student reading
Commentary
9.12.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Impacts of a wide-ranging early literacy intervention in California

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

In February 2020, California settled a case which alleged that the state was violating the right to an education by sending kids to schools that didn’t teach them how to read.

Student reading
High school graduates
Commentary
9.5.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

What’s the point of high school?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Many states are struggling to revise their high-school graduation requirements, sometimes up, sometimes down. The most basic is the perennial issue of how hard should it be to earn a diploma. The next is how can high schools can possibly prepare thousands of dissimilar young people for the expectations and prerequisites of hundreds of differing post-graduation options?

High school graduates
Parent-teacher conference
Commentary
9.5.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

It’s time for tough love to address chronic absenteeism

David Griffith, Daniel Buck

Despite an unprecedented infusion of resources, the latest data show that American students are struggling to recover

Parent-teacher conference
Indiana Statehouse
Commentary
8.30.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Why Indiana high school diploma changes may do more harm than good

Sophia Craiutu

Indiana’s new proposed legislation on altered diploma requirements redesigns the purpose of a high school education, which I believe will have negative consequences for students across the state, with regard to the diminishing skills of global-mindedness and perspectives.

Indiana Statehouse
Teacher talking to a student
Commentary
8.29.2024
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Tough love should be the theme of 2024–25

Michael J. Petrilli

Society as a whole has largely bounced back from the dark days of the pandemic, but life inside our schools is arguably worse than ever. Attendance is dismal. Cheating is pervasive. Cell phones are everywhere. Disorder abounds. And for all these reasons and more, kids are learning less than they were back before the plague struck. The right way to respond is to embrace tough love. That means, first and foremost, again holding students accountable for their behavior.

Teacher talking to a student
Students walking to school
Commentary
8.29.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

Does competition from charter schools help or hurt traditional public schools?

David Griffith, Heena Kuwayama

It’s widely acknowledged that a bit of healthy competition is a good thing in most contexts. Among other things, it pushes businesses to create better products and athletes and musicians to train longer and harder. But what about in education?

Students walking to school
School exterior
Commentary
8.22.2024
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The complicated interplay between race, poverty, and schooling

Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham’s new study by Paul L. Morgan and Eric Hengyu Hu, "Explaining Achievement Gaps: The Role of Socioeconomic Factors," raises as many questions as it answers. Among them: How can we explain the different patterns for the Black-White achievement gap for reading, on the one hand, and math and science, on the other? Why does SES explain so much more of the Hispanic-White gap than the Black-White gap? And what’s the role of family structure in explaining the Black-White and Hispanic-White gaps?

School exterior
Frustrated school teacher
Commentary
8.22.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How have teacher working conditions changed since the pandemic?

Heena Kuwayama

As a teacher both during and immediately after the pandemic, I was constantly on the receiving end of some version of: “You must be so relieved that the pandemic is over.” My response was always: “Actually, it has only gotten worse.” And it’s not just me.

Frustrated school teacher
Report
8.21.2024
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Explaining Achievement Gaps: The Role of Socioeconomic Factors

Eric Hengyu Hu, Ph.D., Paul L. Morgan, Ph.D.

Racial achievement gaps in schools are well documented and remain a significant cause of concern in education. Troubling too is that the role of socioeconomic disparities in mediating these gaps remains unresolved.

School library
Commentary
8.15.2024
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

They’re still not book bans

Daniel Buck

Just when I thought that book ban debates were so last year—gone the way of critical race theory or the Common Core, subsumed by the latest controversy over Title IX or Project 2025—it seems those grouchy conservatives are at it again.

School library
School robotics class
Commentary
8.15.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Threading the needle on selective enrollment public schools

Michael J. Petrilli

A recent article in the Boston Globe dug into a controversy that is dogging Massachusetts’s highly-regarded system of regional career and technical education (CTE) high schools.

School robotics class
Closed school
Commentary
8.1.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities, Governance

Stop playing the race card on school closures

Vladimir Kogan

Everyone who cares about racial justice should be focused on doing what’s best for students and their learning—not on school buildings or the employment impact of closing some of them.

Closed school
Standardized test in school
Commentary
8.1.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for standardized testing

Victoria McDougald

By now, we’re well familiar with critiques of standardized testing opponents: tests rob schools of critical instructional time, encourage teaching to the test, place undue pressure on students and educators to perform, are educationally irrelevant, only provide a snapshot of student achievement at a specific moment in time, and are largely driven by family income levels, parents’ education, and

Standardized test in school
Wonkathon
Commentary
7.30.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

“Everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions to chronic absenteeism

Kelly James, Brad Bernatek

Read the winning entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”

Wonkathon
Wonkathon
Commentary
7.29.2024
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Let’s stop blaming kids for absenteeism and unleash entrepreneurship

Darien Contu

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”

Wonkathon