Displaying 271-300 of 1073 results
Commentary
6.1.2023
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

School choice proponents must wrestle with its shortcomings

Daniel Buck

Thomas Sowell famously quipped that “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.” Even seemingly beneficial policies have repercussions. Reduce the prison population and crime increases. Close schools to prevent the spread of Covid and standardized test scores plummet. What’s more, even historic, society-altering changes come with side effects.

Commentary
5.25.2023
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

School systems’ essential quest for coherence

Emily Freitag

Every leader of a state or school system gets asked the question, “How do all of the things we are doing fit together?” It’s a question about “coherence”—the Holy Grail of education, says Freitag. And for the last two years, she has worked with leaders of four offices in one state with the goal of finding more of it. Here’s what she learned.

Commentary
5.25.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The CLT is a growing, classical alternative to the ACT and SAT: An interview with its co-founder

Daniel Buck

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that allowed high schoolers to use the Classic Learning Test (CLT)—a classical alternative to the SAT and ACT—to qualify for the state’s Bright Futures scholarship. Already accepted at over 200 colleges, this legislation is the CLT’s biggest boost yet.

Commentary
5.25.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Another nail in the “money doesn’t matter” coffin

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

In recent years, the debate on the impact of financial resources in education has been petering out. Studies showing that more money for schools has had a discernable effect on student academic outcomes, particularly for students from lower-income families, keep accumulating.

Commentary
5.25.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Dire straits: Taking stock of and addressing pandemic-related learning loss

Victoria McDougald

As the school year winds down, and with the World Health Organization officially declaring the emergency phase of the Covid-19 pandemic over earlier this month, many students, parents, a

Commentary
5.18.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Getting reading legislation right

Dale Chu

Indiana’s Republican governor just signed into law a bill that mandates, among other

Commentary
5.11.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Do charter schools improve outcomes for English learners?

David Griffith, Michael J. Petrilli

The number of English learners in charter schools has increased markedly in recent years, but our knowledge of how well charters serve these students hasn’t kept pace with that growth. That’s why we conducted our new study, "Charter Schools and English Learners in the Lone Star State." It finds, among other things, that compared to their traditional public school peers, English learners in Texas charters are more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college. They also earn more money in the post-college years.

Commentary
5.11.2023
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

An evolving landscape calls for a “both/and” approach to school choice and charter schools

Frederick M. Hess

This year’s state legislative sessions, now coming to a close, have yielded a blizzard of high-profile victories on school choice, from the enactment of universal education savings accounts (ESA) programs, to the expansion of private school choice policies to serve many more families, to fairer funding for charter schools.

Commentary
5.11.2023
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

3 reasons why religious charter schools should give us pause

Kathleen Porter-Magee

When it comes to K–12 education policy, the post-Covid period has become, more than almost anything else, the era of school choice. This success has opened new avenues for its growth and confronted choice supporters—particularly Catholic school supporters—with an important decision.

Commentary
5.5.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

High-achieving middle schoolers fare poorly in U.S. history and civics, finds NAEP, but that’s nothing new

Brandon L. Wright

Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.

Commentary
5.4.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

History and civics scores still falling, reports NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Aaargh. Here we go again. The new National Assessment civics and history results are as deplorable as they were predictable. Whether they’ll also serve as the action-forcer that we need is far from certain.

Commentary
4.28.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Standards

“A Nation at Risk” still has a message for today, forty years later

Bruno V. Manno

This April marks forty years since the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its blockbuster report “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” The commission, which worked for eighteen months, was created in August 1981 by U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel Bell early in his tenure with President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Commentary
4.27.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Stiff headwinds for civic education

Robert Pondiscio

Note: On April 13, AEI’s Robert Pondiscio spoke at Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance’s Colloquium Series, responding to Dr. Danielle S.

Commentary
4.27.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Advanced Education

Should selective high school admissions be decided by a one-shot test?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

How to select students for advanced or elite academic programs has long been controversial. Critics of “holistic” admissions policies argue they often turn to mush—or inject bias into the process. At the other extreme, a few programs use nothing more than a single assessment to determine placement.

Commentary
4.19.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

California must better support its advanced learners

Victoria McDougald

When my son entered kindergarten at our local public school last fall, I never expected I’d have to become an ambassador and advocate for giftedness and gifted education. He has always been an eager, rapid learner—intensely curious and a social butterfly—so we expected his first year of elementary school to be one of mostly excitement, fun and joy.

Commentary
4.14.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Georgia’s laudable addition of Great Works to its English standards

Mark Bauerlein

The Georgia Department of Education has released a new version of proposed English language arts standards for public comment, and they contain a big surprise. If you dig into the “Texts” section and go to grade eleven, you’ll find this requirement:

Commentary
4.14.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Democracy dies without trust and truth: Strengthen civics education

Walter Parker

The two pillars of democracy—trust and truth—are now cracked. Many Americans believe the political system is corrupt (e.g., rigged, racist), and some don’t believe the results of elections, even certifiably fair ones. Related, we have lost a shared standard of truth and, with it, shared criteria for distinguishing fact from falsehood.

Commentary
4.13.2023
Accountability & Testing, Career & Technical Education, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Standards

Lessons for ed reform from the Tennessee Three

Dale Chu

When Tennessee House Republicans expelled, albeit briefly, two young, Black Democratic lawmakers late last week, it raised a number of unsettling questions—not only about the contours of our politics, but also about the future of educat

Commentary
4.13.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The extended case for faith-based charter schools

Andy Smarick

A little-noticed event in late 2022 destabilized a pillar of contemporary American K–12 education, namely that all schools considered part of the public system must be secular.