Governance

Displaying 241-270 of 1413 results
Report card
Commentary
9.2.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Two cheers for Thomas Taylor

Michael J. Petrilli

Given our moniker as “The Education Gadfly,” we at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute are not accustomed to lavishing praise on education leaders. That’s OK, considering how rarely they deserve it. But when someone in a position of authority demonstrates leadership, courage, and common sense, it’s important for us gadflies (and reformers) to say so.

Report card
New Orleans skyline
Commentary
8.29.2025
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Education reform in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Kamren Herring

Nearly twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Among other sweeping institutional changes, the unprecedented school reforms enacted in the immediate aftermath have left long-lasting effects on the city’s K–12 public education system. But are New Orleans schools still operating in the way that reformers intended?

New Orleans skyline
Indiana Statehouse
Commentary
8.28.2025
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Indiana just removed one of the major barriers to starting a new school

Mike McShane

With eighteen words tucked into a 37-page education bill, the Indiana state legislature took a major step towards easing the lives of educational entrepreneurs. Those words? “A public school, charter school, or nonpublic school shall be considered a permitted use in all zoning districts.”

Indiana Statehouse
Students entering a school
Commentary
8.28.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Private School Choice

The factors influencing private school choice enrollment

Jeff Murray

As private school choice policies have proliferated and matured across the country, researchers have looked at the policy side of the process, as well as

Students entering a school
Slow road sign
Commentary
8.21.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The limit on classical education’s growth

Robert Pondiscio, Annika Hernandez

Classical education has become one of the brightest spots in the K–12 landscape. Once a niche movement, it now encompasses more than 1,500 public, private, and charter schools serving nearly 700,000 students.

Slow road sign
Oklahoma town
Commentary
8.18.2025
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Standards

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, Oklahoma

Michael J. Petrilli

First a bit of history: Before he got canceled during the #Me-Too Movement, Garrison Keillor headlined a very popular public radio variety show called “A Prairie Home Companion.” Most weeks, he regaled listeners with stories from the fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota; I remember lis

Oklahoma town
Red tape
Commentary
8.14.2025
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Overregulated charter schools: Fact or fiction?

Michael J. Petrilli

Many pundits claim that the charter schools sector once had great potential for innovation, but because of dastardly authorizers and other red-tape-loving bureaucrats, charters instead became overly cautious, impeding innovation in a way that has hamstrung and limited the entire charter school movement. Is that true?

Red tape
Student reading in class
Commentary
8.14.2025
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The U.S. ignores home-grown ed ideas that are accelerating progress overseas

Nick Gibb

One could argue that the University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham is one of the most influential Americans of the 21st century. Willingham has observed that we have learned more about how people learn in the last 25 years than in the previous 2,500 combined.

Student reading in class
Teachers in a school
Commentary
8.14.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How states can address instructional incoherence

Emily Freitag

States can play a powerful role in improving student learning by improving instruction. I know this from my experience working at a state agency and from observing how the districts and schools that partner with my organization, Instruction Partners, orient to the expectations and initiatives of their state agencies.

Teachers in a school
Teacher in a school hallway
Commentary
8.14.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Does a shorter school week help recruit and retain teachers?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

The four-day school week has become one of the fastest-growing trends in American K–12 education, particularly in rural communities. By 2023, roughly 850 districts across 24 states had adopted the shorter week, up from about 600 before the pandemic.

Teacher in a school hallway
Mother and son touring city
Commentary
8.6.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

A new way to measure school quality

David Griffith, Ph.D., Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

Education savings accounts in Texas. Open enrollment in Missouri. Each week seems to bring a new story and more education options for American students.

Mother and son touring city
"Dear Diary Boy" book cover
Commentary
8.6.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

A book that shows how much America underestimates its students

Alina Adams

In her memoir, Dear Diary Boy: An Exacting Mother, Her Free-Spirited Son, and Their Bittersweet Adventures in an Elite Japanese School, author Kumiko Makihara recounts her son Taro’s experience attending first through sixth grade in her home country of Japan.

"Dear Diary Boy" book cover
Happy student in school
Commentary
8.1.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

The 70-cent solution: An innovation success story in K–12 schools

Eric Tucker, Edward Metz

What if a federal program reached four fifths of K–12 students nationwide for just 70 cents each, yielded a 9-to-1 return, seed-funded over 100 entrepreneurial education technology startups, and introduced AI and other novel solutions in classrooms? Skeptics might rightly raise an eyebrow.

Happy student in school
Colorado Governor Jared Polis
Commentary
7.31.2025
Governance

Help wanted: Ed-reform governors needed (again)

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Once upon a time, governors were the most potent drivers of K–12 education reform in America. It started in the ’80s, propelled by leaders on both side of the aisle. Today is different. As choice-focused reforms burgeon in red states, there’s backsliding almost everywhere when it comes to standards, assessment and accountability, leadership is scarce, and bipartisanship is rare indeed. Could a new NGA report represent a return to form?

Colorado Governor Jared Polis
Teenager working in a grocery store
Commentary
7.31.2025
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Why high schools should help students land summer jobs

Michael J. Petrilli

Much of the education world is obsessed these days (and rightly so) with preparing students for the world of work.

Teenager working in a grocery store
Image of hand with money and graduation cap
Commentary
7.24.2025
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice

Trump’s school choice initiative puts Democratic governors in a bind

Michael J. Petrilli

Will Democratic leaders opt their states into the new federal school choice provision, allowing families to accept scholarships that are funded by charitable donations from taxpayers nationwide? Or will they bow to the demands of the teachers unions and bar the schoolhouse door instead, creating a grand opportunity for GOP candidates running against them?

Image of hand with money and graduation cap
Child drinking soda
Commentary
7.17.2025
Accountability & Testing, Governance

Which is worse: Sugary snacks or bad schools?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Writing in National Review, Audrey Fahlberg describes efforts by Republican governors in a growing number of states to ban candy and soda from purchases paid for with federal SNAP benefits—the program formerly known as Food Stamps. Will they apply the same standard to awful schools and fraudulent providers that are supported by payments generated by federal tax credits and state-level voucher and ESA programs?

Child drinking soda
Donald Trump signing a bill
Commentary
7.17.2025
Governance, Private School Choice

The One Big Beautiful Bill could bankroll supplemental learning

Travis Pillow

Both supporters and detractors of a landmark education provision in the newly passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act have framed it, primarily, as a new funding stream to help families pay for private school.

Donald Trump signing a bill
Paper with red ink
Commentary
7.10.2025
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

No one actually likes high expectations

Daniel Buck

Rigorous education is far less popular on the ground than many policy wonks believe. Of course, everyone pays lip service to high academic and behavioral expectations in general. But when it comes to the particulars, many people—parents, teachers, and administrators alike, most kids, too—bristle at what rigorous education means in practice.

Paper with red ink
Empty hallway
Commentary
7.10.2025
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance

Close bad schools and expand good ones

Chad Aldeman

Close low-performing, underenrolled schools. Expand high-performing, in-demand schools.

Empty hallway
Feet with arrows in different directions
Commentary
7.10.2025
Charter Schools, Governance, Personalized Learning, Private School Choice

Seizing educational dynamism

Stéphane Lavertu, Tim Rosenberger

American education is experiencing an historic shift. After more than a century of consolidation and standardization, a wave of pluralism is sweeping the country.

Feet with arrows in different directions
American flag
Commentary
7.3.2025
Governance

Patriotism, American identity, civics ed—and Independence Day

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The Fourth of July this year—tomorrow, remember?—is far more than a one-shot holiday with fireworks and hot dogs. It’s the kickoff of a year in which many Americans will focus on the origins, meaning, and mission of the Declaration of Independence, as we prepare to observe its 250th anniversary—its semiquincentennial, if you insist—twelve months from tomorrow.

American flag
Chalkboard with democrats and republicans
Commentary
6.26.2025
Governance

Which Party Really Has the Edge on Education?

Caitlin Peartree, David Winston

When it comes to handling education issues, voters have consistently placed more confidence in Democrats than Republicans, according to surveys conducted by The Winston Group since 1999.

Chalkboard with democrats and republicans
empty desks
Commentary
6.26.2025
Governance

Terrifying families is indeed bad for children

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

Since January 7—the day after Donald Trump’s election was certified—and escalating since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its sister agency U.S.

empty desks
Student standing outside school
Commentary
6.19.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Whose school is it anyway?

Robert Pondiscio

The tension between public education as a civic institution and education as a vehicle for social justice is difficult to resolve. It doesn’t arrive as a policy change. It enters quietly, through teacher training programs, professional development, and curricular “recommendations.”

Student standing outside school