Podcast
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How schools should spend federal Covid-19 aid
With two big rounds of Covid-19 aid having been sent to schools and at least a third on the horizon, leaders must make difficult decisions, especially as more schools reopen and the pandemic rages on. How can they use this money to best mitigate risk, facilitate effective hybrid learning, and most importantly, get kids back on track after suffering substantial learning losses?
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Literacy is equity
Any discussion about “equity” in education that is not first and foremost a discussion about literacy is unserious.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How much does student motivation affect student outcomes?
Why do some students succeed and others lag behind? This is, of course, a central question in education policy.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
What drives racial gaps in special education identification?
Recent work published in the Journal of Labor Economics examines how school segregation may be related to racial gaps in special education identification.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
How ya gonna keep ‘em back in that old school?
If the pandemic vanished tomorrow and all U.S. schools instantly reopened in exactly the same fashion as they were operating last February, how many parents would be satisfied to return their daughters and sons to the same old familiar classrooms, teachers, schedules and curricula? A lot fewer than the same old schools and those who run and teach in them are expecting back!
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
How anger over Covid closures can fuel the school choice movement
The father testifying before Virginia’s Loudon County school board
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Opening schools can help heal our divided country
Last month, I weighed in on the renewed calls for civics education after January 6’s disgraceful assault on the U.S. Capitol. While teaching civics would be a good start, schools are critical institutions of civil society regardless of whether they teach civics well or at all.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The negative effects of student absenteeism: From bad to worse in a pandemic
Predicting the effects of pandemic-related disruption on students’ education is a vital but fraught pursuit.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Predicting students’ academic trajectory from third grade test scores
Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, annual testing in math and reading for students in grades three through eight became mandatory in every state beginning in 2005.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Rick Hess and Ian Rowe discuss 1776 Unites and efforts to promote a vision of a unified America
Editor’s note: This interview was first published by Rick Hess on his blog with Education Week, Rick Hess Straight Up.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Unexpected innovation: Charter schools and novice teacher development
Let’s start with a little game. Trust me, it will be helpful if you play along… Grab a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Complete the following sentence: First-year or early-career teachers typically struggle most with… (Try to come up with a few answers.)
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What to do about the Covid kindergarten cohort?
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Don’t let bad habits become the “new normal”
From the start of the pandemic, I’ve resisted talk of the “new normal” in education for two reasons. First and most importantly, there’s an unquenchable thirst for the old normal, and increasingly so as disruptions to traditional patterns of schooling approach the twelve-month mark.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Merit aid and college outcomes
For many years, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) in Nebraska has provided full-ride college scholarships to eligible high school graduates in the state. This randomized study examines how such largesse affects higher education enrollment and degree completion.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
3 ways instructional materials help to address unfinished learning in math
A few months ago, I wrote an article about Covid-19 learning loss and t
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Advice to the Biden administration on improving special education. More money isn’t enough—or most important.
Among the many reasons equity advocates are celebrating new leadership in Washington is the hope that President Biden and Secretary of Education-designate Cardona will do more to help students with disabilities. These kids struggled mightily in school before the pandemic, and no group of students has suffered more from remote and hybrid learning.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What the Capitol riot means for civics education
Still reeling from the assault on the Capitol and the subsequent impeachment effort against Former President Trump, the education sphere’s attention has understandably returned to the need to resuscitate the teaching of civics and history. If schools did a better job of grounding our students in the principles of a free society and a basic understanding of U.S.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
One option for giving children their pandemic year back: Add an extra year to elementary school, forever
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The pandemic dims a beacon of school improvement
For the past decade, Washington, D.C., schools have shone as a success story, with achievement for all students rising steadily in elementary and middle schools and more quickly than the national average.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The civics and history lesson our children need right now
History, well taught, equips students with the ability to see through current crises. Civics, well taught, fosters in every heart an investment in democratic processes and a respect bordering on reverence for the rule of law.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Without tests in 2021, we’ll never know which schools met the Covid-19 challenge
The Covid-19 pandemic has run roughshod over so much of our education system, closing schools, sending students home to try to learn remotely, and obliterating last year’s summative state tests.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Charter schools are a Band-Aid when a heart transplant is needed
This post is adapted from an email conversation between Marc Tucker and Fordham’s Michael J. Petrilli, in which Marc was responding to Mike’s recent article, “The case for urban charter schools.” It also appeared in Fordham’s Flypaper newsletter.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Eyes on the street: Reducing crime and boosting school attendance
Reducing student absenteeism is a key goal in many schools’ efforts to improve academic outcomes. The reasons that students skip are myriad—indifference to school, illness, jobs, caring for siblings, and more—which means that there is no one solution.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Dan McKee, poised to be Rhode Island’s next governor, is a model of how to improve schools for all children
Rhode Islanders just saw their governor, Gina Raimondo, tapped to become President-elect Biden’s Secretary of Commerce.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Give disadvantaged children their pandemic year back
As the world struggles through some of the darkest days of the pandemic, and more schools shift back to remote learning, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute are spending most of our time thinking about what comes next: educational recovery.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Explicit teaching vs. constructivism: The misadventures of Bean Dad
Nearly every day, social media plucks some poor, anonymous face in the crowd from obscurity and makes him famous. If you’re making New Year’s Resolutions this year, one should be never to be that guy.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Covid-19 facts and figures will not build trust with terrified parents
It is becoming increasingly clear that pundits and well-meaning education advocates fail to fully grasp the deep distrust that some parents have long had for their children’s schools.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
It’s not news that Miguel Cardona is a charter school authorizer—and that’s worth celebrating
President-Elect Biden has confirmed that he will nominate Dr. Miguel A. Cardona to serve as the next U.S. Secretary of Education. He appears to be a prudent choice for Biden, earning support from teachers unions and education reform groups, including charter operators. Cardona is the current Connecticut Commissioner of Education.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What if everything we believe about education is a lie?
What if we can’t change at scale the distribution of academic outcomes among disparate groups of students? What if our hope that public education can erase inequality is in vain? If these things were true, how would what we ask of schools—and how we measure their success—change?
