Teachers & School Leaders

Displaying 1021-1050 of 1450 results
Commentary
5.10.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Supporting students with disabilities as we emerge from the pandemic

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
5.10.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Four ways schools can prioritize mental health as part of a safe reopening plan

Glenn Albright

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”

Commentary
5.10.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Civics education—like barbecue—should not be one-recipe-fits-all

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Frederick M. Hess

There’s not a lot that right and left agree about right now, but one big thing is the sorry state of civil debate. Whether the fault lies with social media, institutional erosion, or something else, the result is the same: a nation of people who aren’t good at listening to ideas they don’t already hold, assessing them thoughtfully, and discussing them in respectful terms.

Commentary
5.7.2021
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Evidence-based ways to assess student progress

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
5.7.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The power of words

Sally Bergquist

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”

Commentary
5.6.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Four instructional strategies that can improve learning and are based on cognitive science

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
5.6.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Biden can’t seem to decide whether all young Americans need a postsecondary education. He’s not the only one who’s conflicted.

Michael J. Petrilli

Let’s stop denigrating the straight-into-the-workforce pathway for high school graduates. As we were reminded over the past year, so-called “low skill” jobs are critical to society. And they can be their own form of postsecondary education, as young people gain on-the-job skills that will lead to more opportunities and better wages going forward. Read more.

Commentary
5.6.2021
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Cancel culture versus parent choice

Terry Ryan

Can parent choice survive the cancel culture that is becoming ever more prevalent on both the political left and political right? What happens when the principles of diversity and choice in schools conflict with either the left’s or the right’s firm view of truth and falsehoods?

Commentary
5.6.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How schools can fund and implement strong mental health supports after the pandemic

Sarah Broome

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”

Commentary
5.6.2021
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Inaugural PISA data on students’ growth mindset and teaching practices

Jeff Murray

Since 1997, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has tested students around the globe every three years to determine the educational status of fifteen-year-old students in dozens of countries and economic regions that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Commentary
5.3.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Developing students’ social and emotional skills may be more important now than ever

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

I believe “antiracism” is misguided. Can I still teach Black children?

Robert Pondiscio

Is a professed commitment to the tenets of “antiracism,” as defined by Ibram Kendi, now non-negotiable in the teaching profession? Are those of us who hold different views and ideals about student expectations, pedagogical practice, and school culture no longer welcome to lead classrooms with Black and Brown children? Read more.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Three things to watch for in schools’ post-Covid recovery

Dale Chu

Despite the progress schools and districts have made on returning fully to in-person instruction, some of the habits and apprehensions they’ve developed over the last thirteen months could impede their upcoming education recovery efforts.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How to pump the Acceleration Imperative up to full speed

Kalman R. Hettleman

Think of Michael Petrilli’s bold ideas and the Acceleration Imperative as newly designed Ford(ham) vehicles for K–12 recovery from the pandemic. Happily, there is much to admire in the showroom.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The bias toward complexity when humans attempt to solve problems

Jeff Murray

Problem solving involves a complex set of mental steps, even when it happens quickly. A group of researchers from the University of Virginia sought to test one specific aspect of the process—the types of solutions people consider—and uncovered what could be an important human attribute, with significant implications for public policy.

Commentary
4.28.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How to adopt and implement a high-quality elementary mathematics curriculum

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.22.2021
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Testing, SpaceX, and the quest for consensus

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

A suite of technologies that are already widely used in some private-sector testing can and should be embraced by state and national assessments, as well as the private tests that aren’t yet making maximum use of them. Read more.

Commentary
4.22.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Six principles for high-quality, effective writing instruction for all students

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.19.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Three important considerations for selecting and implementing an elementary ELA curriculum

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” an open-source, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

High-quality, knowledge-rich curriculum is essential

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” an open-source, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

An ode to elementary schools

Michael J. Petrilli

If I had to name the most important institution in American life, and the one with the most potential for changing the course of our country, it would be the humble elementary school. Especially the 20,000 or so high-poverty elementary schools in the nation’s cities and inner-ring suburbs, educating millions of kids growing up in poor or working-class families.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Can teaching be improved by law?

Robert Pondiscio

If there’s one lesson education policymakers might have learned in the last twenty-five years, it’s that it’s not hard to make schools and districts do something, but it’s extremely hard to make them do it well.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Uncle Sam goes soft on state tests

Dale Chu

Things are getting messy in the world of assessment.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Mentors’ effect on middle school attendance

Melissa Gutwein

More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, lost instructional time is top of mind for anyone connected to education.

Commentary
4.12.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A different K–12 world: Teens and parents on Covid-19 shock and schools

Bruno V. Manno

In the song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan penned an iconic refrain that asks: “But something is happening/And ya’ don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?” That refrain seems an apt way to describe what K–12 education stakeholders are sensing as they reel in response to Covid-19 shock.

Commentary
4.9.2021
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How schools can return from the pandemic with strong mental health supports in place

Sarah Broome

This fall, most students will be returning to full-time, in-person instruction after one of the most disrupted years of their lives. All students will be coming back with varying degrees of adverse experiences. Some may have lost loved ones, had a parent lose their job, seen a parent go through illness, or even been sick themselves.