National Teachers & School Leaders

Displaying 61-90 of 1450 results

Commentary

6.11.2026

Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The assessment that does everything is too good to be true

Dale Chu

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.

Commentary

6.11.2026

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

What a recent survey tells us about teachers and the science of reading

Kari Kurto

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.

Commentary

6.4.2026

Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

A second wind for standards?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

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.

Commentary

6.4.2026

Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How can states and systems help teacher preparation programs with the science of reading?

Cece Zhou, Kathleen Castillo-Clark

For the last several years, as more than 40 states have invested in evidence-based literacy instruction, national attention has understandably focused on the K–12 implementation efforts that have the most direct impacts on students, including widely discussed change efforts like that in Mississippi

Commentary

6.4.2026

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

Mixed-achievement math classrooms are a net negative

Julia Hayes

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.

Commentary

5.29.2026

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

Why is Gen Z obsessed with technology?

Jill Hoppe, Elainah Elkins

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.

Commentary

5.28.2026

Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The diminishing power of teacher unions

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

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.

Commentary

5.28.2026

Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Flawed curricular materials aren’t the only reason students aren’t reading enough whole books

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

For many of us born in the twentieth century, “English class” evokes memories of tattered copies of The Great Gatsby or Macbeth, chapter-a-night reading assignments, and that all-too-familiar sinking feeling when the next day’s pop quiz appeared.

Commentary

5.22.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

If school boards approve curriculum, they should understand it

Julia Hayes

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.

Commentary

5.21.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Everyone loves recess, but should states mandate it?

Dale Chu

From Oklahoma to California, states across the political spectrum are moving to require

Commentary

5.21.2026

Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Does “a portrait of a graduate” downplay rigorous academic expectations?

Michael J. Petrilli

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:

Commentary

5.21.2026

Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders

Can sports reduce chronic absenteeism? Evidence from Indiana

Julia Hayes

During the 2024–25 school year, more than 8.2 million students participated in high school sports, with varsity athletes representing an important subset of that group.

Commentary

5.20.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Sharing students is key to success for these 3rd grade educators

Lauren Wagner

Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74. “We want to be good readers. We want to understand, not just get a good score on a test.”

Commentary

5.14.2026

Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Five policies for school boards to improve discipline

Daniel Buck

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.

Commentary

5.14.2026

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

Findings from the new phone ban study may not be so bleak after all

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

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

Commentary

5.1.2026

Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The science of reading has won the argument. Has it won the classroom?

Robert Pondiscio

A few years ago, the “science of reading” was still treated in some quarters as a niche movement—something for literacy specialists, cranky traditionalists, and a handful of obsessives who spent too much time fighting the reading wars on the internet. No longer.

Commentary

4.30.2026

School Finance, Teachers & School Leaders

Minimum pay, maximum impact: Arkansas’s teacher retention strategy

Elainah Elkins

Teacher pay has become a big contender in the education reform space, with growing agreement that paying educators a

Commentary

4.30.2026

Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

Accommodations are a concern, but don’t blame parents

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman

When 20 percent of Harvard and Brown students and 38 percent of Stanford’s are eligible for accommodations even as just 3–4 percent of students in community colleges are, we have a crisis of trust in testing, fairness, and equity.

Commentary

4.30.2026

Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The “science of reading gap”

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

In recent years, states and districts have made a concerted effort to align early elementary school instruction with “the science of reading.” But how much progress has actually been made? To find out, Fordham researchers David Griffith and Brian Fitzpatrick analyzed results from a nationally representative survey of K–3 teachers that examined their knowledge of reading science and its relationship to the policies that shape instruction. One disturbing finding: Teachers in high-poverty schools appear less committed to the science of reading than their peers.

Commentary

4.23.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Beware the unintended consequences of school screen time limits

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

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.

Commentary

4.23.2026

Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Why is Gen Z so anxious?

Jill Hoppe, Elainah Elkins

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.

Commentary

4.16.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

In defense of the humble novel

Miah Daughtery

As novels disappear from language arts classrooms, their many distinctive benefits are disappearing, too. So argues Daughtery, a former teacher and lifelong lover of the artform. This is a civilization loss that schools should work to reverse.

Commentary

4.16.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Robots won’t replace teachers but could help with other school roles

Dale Chu

At a White House summit last month, first lady Melania Trump turned heads by entering alongside a humanoid robot, promising a future where machines might tutor children in art, philosophy, and other intellectual pursuits.

Commentary

4.16.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Teachers aren’t worse—the job is harder than ever

Julia Hayes

“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.

Commentary

4.9.2026

Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How to hire a school superintendent

Robert Pondiscio

Hiring a superintendent is the most important decision a school board makes. Superintendents are not just the district’s CEO. They are (or ought to be) the de facto chief academic officer, responsible for setting the instructional direction of the system.

Commentary

4.9.2026

Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The high school pathways that boost adult earnings

Aaron Churchill

It’s not often that a conservative education secretary and a progressive teachers union boss see eye to eye.

Commentary

4.2.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The limits of high-quality curriculum evaluation

Robert Pondiscio

For the better part of a decade, Natalie Wexler has helped reshape the conversation about American education.

Commentary

4.2.2026

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

Close the music education gap

Jill Hoppe

I still remember my elementary music teacher roaming the halls, pushing a cart overflowing with tambourines, recorders, and sheet music. This vibrant world was threatened, however, when I was in fourth grade as the district began discussing cuts to our music program.

Commentary

4.2.2026

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

Gen Z talks about life after high school

Bruno V. Manno

High school graduation is often treated as the pivotal moment when one becomes an adult. But for many young people today, adulthood unfolds unevenly over time, through a mix of work, further education, financial pressure, stalled plans, and gradual independence.

Commentary

3.26.2026

Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The human stakes of AI grading

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

As teachers embrace and incorporate AI tools, the technology poses a number of risks. But there is also hope that forward-thinking teachers may uncover replicable, scalable strategies for deploying it to make the job more manageable and free up time to build the relationships with students that matter so much for learning.