The Education Freedom Tax Credit could be an utter disaster, argues Buck. The greatest risk is that, in time, the program will become a stick that the federal government can wield to thwack private schools into submission. But that’s not the only problem.
Lately there has been a lot of discussion about whether states should opt in to the federal “Education Freedom Tax Credit”—a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individual contributions to nonprofit s
More than a dozen states are designing, piloting, or implementing some form of through-year assessment as a replacement for the traditional end-of-year test used for federal accountability. But their enthusiasm rests on a shaky assumption: that a single assessment can simultaneously satisfy accountability requirements, improve instruction, provide timely feedback, reduce testing burden, preserve local flexibility, and produce valid statewide comparisons.
Editor’s note: This discussion between members of the Fordham research team and Kari Kurto, The Reading League’s National Director of Policy and Partnerships, comes in the wake of Fordham’s recent survey, From the Teacher’s Desk: A Science of Reading Progress Report.
Recent weeks have brought a few encouraging signs that the decades-long effort to kill academic standards in the name of equity has wreaked enough havoc and that something of a counter-movement can be glimpsed.
It’s much disputed in England whether grouping students by achievement level or mixing them together is a more effective strategy for teaching in secondary schools. This practice resembles achievement grouping in the U.S., particularly when done in specific subjects like math.
For every dollar states spend on K–12 education, less than half a penny is earmarked for advanced learning. This surprising finding comes from our recent study of K–12 education spending in the U.S., generously supported by the Carina Initiative.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series written by Elainah Elkins and Jill Hoppe, born in 1999 and 2000, respectively. There is growing discourse surrounding Gen Z, but the voices of Gen Zers themselves are often missing from the conversation. This is their response.
Our latest study gauges teacher union strength in every state. Those with the strongest are Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. There’s a clear red state/blue state divide, but that’s not the whole story.
Researchers use the latest publicly available data and a fresh survey of K–12 stakeholders in all 50 states to provide a comprehensive update to Fordham’s 2012 rankings of state teacher union strength.
School board members are possibly the most overlooked decision-makers in education, and they rarely dominate reform conversations. However, local school board members routinely approve one of the most important decisions school districts make: curriculum. As science of reading reforms accelerate across districts and states, this role is becoming more consequential—and more complicated.
The National Assessment Government Board made some very good news last week, albeit a decade or two late, when it voted to commence more frequent testing of civics and, especially, to make 12th grade results available at the state level.
From Oklahoma to California, states across the political spectrum are moving to require
It’s commencement season, including for my firstborn son, who graduates high school in less than two weeks. So it’s a good time to check in on the “portrait of a graduate” movement. If that term is unfamiliar to you, CASEL defines it as:
A new Fordham report estimates the value of earning industry-recognized credentials and certificates as part of high school CTE pathways. The study provides some of the best evidence to date on the economic value of technical education that students can earn during high school. Now, Shaun Dougherty, one of the nation’s leading CTE scholars, puts the Plasman study in the context of the larger research literature.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced her intention to participate in the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, joining Colorado Governor Jared Polis as the only Democrats thus far to do so. Should those who support school choice in all its varieties but aren’t crazy about the particulars of the federal initiative celebrate these decisions?
One year, I decided to write down bullet-pointed notes on all the chaos, violence, and disorder that occurred in my school: Two students held a peer against a wall while a third pummeled them in the face and stomach; another student beat up a special needs child on the bus; a girl brought a hammer to school but it was confiscated before she could use it.
Over the six years I taught high school, I tried every response to student cellphone use that was available to me: one warning, three warnings, no warnings; reacting to the mere sight of a phone, looking the other way if the use wasn’t conspicuous; calling the front office, calling the counselor, revisiting “classroom norms,” emailing parents, buying
National Charter Schools Week (May 10 to 16) rightly focuses our attention on the millions of students attending public charter schools. Less attention goes to the federal program that helped make much of that growth possible.
Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva joins The Education Gadfly Show to discuss the
Students can earn more than 1.8 million credentials in the United States today. We know education pays—particularly for those with a bachelor’s degree.
After decades of reading wars, policy stalemates, and children quietly falling behind, teachers across the country are embracing the science of reading. That finding comes from a new Fordham report, which also tells a harder story about what’s left to do.
For much of the past three decades, education reform rested on a surprisingly durable bipartisan foundation, from the standards and accountability movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s through No Child Left Behind and into the Obama-era push for more
Last week, I participated in a meeting with other policy wonks, debating (among other topics) whether all states should follow the lead of the Southern Surge rs and embrace a top-down approach to curriculum reform.
Wide-ranging education reforms in New York City Public Schools in the early 2000s under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chief Joel Klein ran the gamut from school closures and consolidations to revamping acad
For all the talk about preparing students for college and career, American education still struggles with one of its most important jobs: helping young people make a confident first move into adult life. We ask students to make big decisions about college, work, and training, but give them weak maps for what comes next.
With school phone bans of various sorts now underway in 41 states and counting, debates on classroom screen time have shifted focus to the devices ostensibly being used for educational purposes: Chromebooks, iPads, and the like. In response to all the tech backlash, state policymakers are taking swift action, some of which is warranted, but much of which bears signs of legislative haste.
Fifteen years have passed since Indiana took home the Fordham Institute’s “Education Reform Idol” crown, a recognition earned through a
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series written by Elainah Elkins and Jill Hoppe, born in 1999 and 2000, respectively. There is growing discourse surrounding Gen Z, but the voices of Gen Zers themselves are often missing from the conversation. This is their response.
“If teachers can’t manage student behavior today, they must be worse than they used to be.” It’s a claim I’ve heard often, particularly from people who have never worked in a school. As a former teacher, this claim makes me furious. The belief is simplistic and wrong. Teachers are not worse than they used to be.
