Governance

Displaying 541-570 of 1416 results
Commentary
11.16.2023
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear might be a moderate Democrat, but he’s no education reformer

Daniel Buck

After handily defeating his Republican rival for the governorship of red-hued Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear is having a moment as a center-left moderate who could run for president in 2028. But we education reformers should curb our enthusiasm because Beshear’s stances are alien to ours.

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Commentary
11.16.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Liberty and civic education

David Davenport, Mark C. Schug

Editor’s note: This was first published by The Liberty Fund.

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Commentary
11.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Do schools provide equal value to all their students?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Previous literature on school quality and teacher quality largely assumes that good schools and good teachers are beneficial for all enrolled children, which means that a school’s “value added” is typically calculated as the average effect on students.

Commentary
11.15.2023
School Finance, Career & Technical Education, Governance

Apprenticeships are the new learning campus

Bruno V. Manno

College for all has been the goal of K–12 schools for at least twenty-five years. This has meant that America’s schools typically do not provide young people with work experience. This experience gap has young people leaving high school with little understanding of work and practical pathways to jobs and careers.

Commentary
11.9.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

School choice isn’t killing traditional public schools. It’s making them better.

Michael J. Petrilli

The impact of school choice on traditional school districts, what scholars call its “competitive effects,” is an area in which there is much high-quality research. A new book critical of choice fails to wrestle with this fact.

Commentary
11.9.2023
Governance

State education departments are cheerleading mediocrity

Dale Chu

Post-pandemic learning loss is a lot like the national deficit. It is huge, it is exacerbated by political divisions, and nothing that’s currently being done about it will come close to solving the problem.

Commentary
11.2.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Smartphones and social media are leading to depression and anxiety for our students. Are they depressing test scores, too?

Michael J. Petrilli

Smartphones and social media are likely at least partly to blame for the teenage mental health epidemic that started around 2013. Is it possible that phones and social media might also be behind the plateauing and decline of student achievement that we’ve seen in America, also starting around 2013?

Commentary
11.2.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

A new paper fails to prove that accountability impedes innovation in charter schools

David Griffith, Ph.D.

Welcome to the latest installment of the Regulation Wars, a long-running family quarrel that centers on the perceived tensions between two of the charter school movement’s founding principles: innovation and execution (or, if you prefer, autonomy and accountability).

Commentary
11.2.2023
Governance

Where do the Republican candidates stand on education?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Maybe it’s premature for an election that’s still a year away, and perhaps it’s archaic to expect to find any serious discussion of issues and policies in candidates’ campaign websites. Old-fashioned plodder that I am, however, I went foraging on those websites to see what I could find about their policy positions on education.

Commentary
10.26.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Bias in AI is a real problem

Daniel Buck

Hysteria over students cheating via ChatGPT and other generative AI applications is so last year. This season’s hyperventilation-initiator is the potential for bias in AI. And well, there’s actually a lot to be worried about.

Commentary
10.26.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What the Defense Department can teach us about schooling

Matthew Levey

The New York Times recently covered the extraordinary academic achievement of Department of Defense schools, noting several factors that contribute to their success. But one important contributor—common values—was not mentioned.

Commentary
10.26.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice

How school choice programs impact private school tuition

Jeff Murray

In a new report and accompanying factsheet, authors Jason Bedrick, Jay Greene, and Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation look into

Commentary
10.19.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Replacing the Carnegie Unit will spark a battle royale

Michael J. Petrilli

One of the most important efforts in American education today is the project to displace the Carnegie Unit as the fundamental unit of measurement in high schools.

Commentary
10.19.2023
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Why education technologies disappoint

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

The claims from the field of education technology—“ed tech” to insiders—could hardly be more grandiose.

Commentary
10.19.2023
Facilities, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

How microschools can succeed

Daniel Buck

Microschools exist as a midpoint between homeschooling and traditional schools. Typically, the entire school will only have twenty-five students and one or two teachers—often parents, sometimes former educators looking for a more personal classroom, and occasionally local community members like doctors who have expertise to share.

Commentary
10.16.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Wonkathon 2023: How can we harness the power but mitigate the risks of artificial intelligence in our schools?

Thomas B. Fordham Institute

As in years past, we’ll encourage our audience to vote for the “wisest wonk.” If you’re keen to jump in—and we hope you are—please let us know and indicate when we can expect your draft. We will publish submissions on a rolling basis, so send yours as soon as practical but no later than Monday, November 6. Aim for 800 to 1200 words.

Commentary
10.12.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Don’t mess with Texas school reform

Dale Chu

Texas legislators returned to Austin earlier this week to try once again to enact a statewide school-choice program in the form of edu

Commentary
10.5.2023
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

AI is a serious threat to student privacy

Daniel Buck

The bulk of commentary and school district policy relating to AI and education focuses almost exclusively on questions regarding cheating and whether it still makes sense to teach kids to write. But there are other risks of the tech and thorny questions looming on the horizon that are worryingly overlooked. Student privacy is perhaps chief among them.

Commentary
10.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

One cheer for New York City’s efforts on advanced education

Brandon L. Wright, Daniel Buck

When former mayor Bill de Blasio promised to dismantle New York City’s gifted education programs, then-candidate Eric Adams laudably promised to save, reform and expand them.  Since taking the helm, howev

Commentary
9.28.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Students’ ignorance of U.S. history and civics remains a national embarrassment

Robert Pondiscio

A new study from a pair of Penn State University researchers finds that passing the U.S. Citizenship Test as a high school graduation requirement does nothing to improve youth voter turnout. Within the last decade, more than a third of U.S.

Commentary
9.28.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

Later-life impacts of school accountability

Jeff Murray

There is no shortage of research into the impacts of school and district accountability systems on education-related student outcomes.

elementary student
Commentary
9.21.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Chronic absenteeism has become a crisis, part 3: Solutions

Tim Daly

Part one of this series explored many possible explanations for the rise in absenteeism. They come in all shapes and sizes, some more plausible than others. Part two unpacks how this issue plays out in cities and suburbs—and what stands out most is how kids are missing school everywhere. This final post offers five solutions.

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