Displaying 301-330 of 1115 results
Commentary
1.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Driving equity in gifted policies: Insights from Harlem Academy in New York City

Vincent Dotoli

Editor’s note: This essay was part of an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that is 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
1.19.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The true enemy of equity

Michael J. Petrilli

Advocates have turned “equity” into a trigger word by pitting the concept against “excellence.” But that line of argument is not only politically unpopular, it’s wrong. In fact, excellence is not the enemy of equity, but the antidote to inequity.

Commentary
1.12.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

One teacher’s response to the reading wars

Nathaniel Grossman

Sold a Story, the podcast series from American Public Media, is essential listening for parents and teachers. Through six episodes, host Emily Hanford documents how schools failed to adequately teach reading to students over the past thirty years.

Commentary
1.12.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

Challenges and disappointments in school superintendency: Lessons from Broad

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

School district superintendents have an unenviable job description—ranging from high-level policy decisions on curriculum and finance to small-scale daily operations questions and small-p politics with stakeholders at all levels—so it’s no surprise that many

Commentary
1.5.2023
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Charter school teacher turnover and retention

Daniel Buck

As one article at National Affairs put it, the cries about a nation-wide teacher shortage are “heavy on anecdote and speculation” but rather light on data.

Commentary
1.5.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

The typical gifted program is likely to become even less equitable

Scott J. Peters, Meredith Langi

By now the unfinished learning that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic is old news.

Commentary
12.20.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

10 signs of progress in gifted education—and reasons for hope in the new year

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
12.16.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Why learn to write?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Will artificial intelligence, operating via “bots” and other non-human intermediaries, replace English composition and the need to teach and learn it? My colleague Robert Pondiscio has written thoughtfully about this, and his answer is no.

Commentary
12.15.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Artificial intelligence is not the end of high-school English

Robert Pondiscio

The internet is abuzz about “ChatGPT,” an artificial intelligence program that can generate remarkably solid pieces of prose in response to prompts both serious and whimsical, instantly, and in any imaginable style. Some find this thrilling. Others, mostly writers and teachers, are filled with existential dread. But let’s dispense with the idea that artificial intelligence will make writing instruction obsolete.

Commentary
12.15.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How to supercharge student learning

Eva Moskowitz

In the wake of pandemic-related learning loss, there’s widespread agreement that we must find more time for learning and a number of schools and districts have added afterschool tutoring and summer school to their calendars.

Commentary
12.15.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

For the love of memorization

Daniel Buck

Every year, I ask my students to memorize a poem, but I intentionally avoid using the word “memorize.” Rather, they must learn Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Langston Hughes’s A Dream Deferred, or some other famous verse by heart. When memorized, poems become something we hold dear in our hearts and minds, growing almost into a mental keepsake.

Commentary
12.8.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The strongest argument for charter schools is the truth

David Griffith

In a new NEPC policy memo, Duke public policy professor Helen Ladd argues that charter schools “disrupt” what she claims are the four core goals of American education policy: “establishing coherent systems of schools,” “appropriate accountability for the use of public funds,” “limiting racial segregation and isolation,” and “attending to child poverty and disadvantage.” Griffith disputes all four counts.

Commentary
12.8.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Institutionalism, not policy, is the biggest barrier to reinventing high schools

Chelsea Waite

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2022 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can states remove policies barriers that are keeping educators from reinventing high schools?”

Commentary
12.8.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Families are shrinking high schools with or without help from policymakers

Matthew Ladner

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2022 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can states remove policies barriers that are keeping educators from reinventing high schools?”

Commentary
12.8.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How some states are fixing problems with early childhood education

William Rost

A FutureEd report released earlier this year analyzes the problems facing early childhood education offerings across the country and how some states have tackled them.

Commentary
12.6.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for gifted education

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
12.1.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How rethinking industry-recognized credentials could boost student success

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Early in my career, I taught high school in North Carolina. One of the coolest things we did was partner annually with the local Habitat for Humanity team. Each year, students in my school’s construction-trades classes built a modular home from the ground up, doing the masonry, carpentry, electrical work, plumbing—all of it.

Commentary
12.1.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The noose tightens around failed reading programs in schools

Robert Pondiscio

There was a remarkable moment near the end of last week’s ExcelinEd conference in Salt Lake City—one that I never would have thought possible and might have scoffed had someone predicted it, even a few short years ago.

Commentary
12.1.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Break high schools’ monopoly on awarding credit and diplomas

Peter Robertson

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2022 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can states remove policies barriers that are keeping educators from reinventing high schools?”

Commentary
12.1.2022
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Policy doesn’t block high school redesign. Lack of will does.

Ed Jones

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2022 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can states remove policies barriers that are keeping educators from reinventing high schools?”

Commentary
11.22.2022
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The case for career and technical education

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Jeanette Luna

With rising college costs and sky-high college dropout rates—almost one-third of American undergraduates quit before completing their degree—young people are lookin

Commentary
11.18.2022
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

“Pragmatism wins”: What the midterms mean for education policy

Nathaniel Grossman

So much for the “red wave.” Republicans expected sweeping victories in last week’s midterm elections that never materialized. Instead, Democrats outperformed expectations by maintaining control of the Senate and holding Republicans to a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.