Commentary
Personalized Learning
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Supporting low birth weight babies helps long after infancy
A recent working paper from NBER takes the notion of “early intervention” f
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Resources for learning from home during Covid-19 school closures
With more than half of states closing their schools due to the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of parents, grandparents, and other caregivers have become de facto “home schoolers” practically overnight. Students in this situation will likely be spending a fair amount of time on screens—as a lifeline, respite, or both. We have compiled some excellent suggestions—updated several times since initial publication—for making at least some of that time educational.
Commentary
Governance, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
The harm of special education enrollment caps
A couple years ago, a high-profile dispute played out between the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the federal Department of Education, with a January 2019 New York Times headline pronouncing,
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning
The top 10 EconTalk episodes on education
A few years ago, as I was wrapping up grad school (where my dissertation was about migrant workers in China, of all things), I came across a bunch of fascinating podcast episodes about education policy and school reform.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Standards
Access, equity, and quality in dual enrollment
Programs that allow high school students the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school are growing fast. In addition to familiar options like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school—otherwise known as college in high school programs–are increasingly popular models in states.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning
Advanced coursework gets a needed boost
Last week in Austin, at the annual “summit” sponsored by the PIE (“Policy Innovators in Education”) Network, prizes were conferred on a handful of state-based education-reform groups that had accomplished remarkable feats in the previous year, this despite the reform-averse mood that chills much of the nation.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, ESSA, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
In math, grade-level tests are holding back low-achieving students
Imagine that you’re a sixth-grade math teacher. It’s the first day of school, and the vast majority of your students arrived multiple years behind where they should be. Your job is to teach them concepts such as understanding percentages and dividing fractions.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Why has AP succeeded when so many other reforms have failed?
American K–12 education is awash in reforms, nostrums, interventions, silver bullets, pilot programs, snake oil peddlers, advocates, and crusaders, not to mention innumerable private foundations that occasionally emerge from their endless cycles of strategic planning to unload their latest brainstorms upon the land. Yet when subjected to close scrutiny, not much actually “works.” The six-decade old Advanced Placement program is a rare and welcome exception.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Low public support for ability grouping is an opportunity for personalized pacing
The latest Education Next poll asked respondents whether they support ability grouping, whereby students take classes with peers at similar academic achievement levels, and for middle school the majority’s answer was no.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How two personalized learning models accelerate the progress of their high-achieving students
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to meet standards at their own pace.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How personalized learning enthusiasts can ensure they aren’t lowering the bar for the kids who are behind
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts looking at how two school networks—Rocketship Public Schools and Wildflower Schools—enable their students to master standards at their own pace. See the first post here.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
In most elementary classrooms, kids are all over the map academically. Here’s how two schools cope.
Almost a decade ago, I wrote that “the greatest challenge facing America’s schools today [is] the enormous variation in the academic level of students coming into any given classroom.” Unlike plenty of what I’ve said over the years, this one has stood the test of time.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Effective social studies interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders
Teaching students to engage with history and civics is important in a democratic society. The critical thinking and communication skills taught in social studies classes are all the more essential to students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) because they equip them to overcome difficulties interacting with and relating to peers.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Can educational data mining predict student performance and enhance personalized learning?
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are ubiquitous, playing a role in everything from Netflix and Instagram algorithms to transportation and healthcare delivery. But it’s also increasingly being used to improve educational pedagogy and delivery through a process called educational data mining (EDM).
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Personalized Learning
Can AP ease Gotham’s selective-high-school deadlock?
Controversy surrounds New York City’s selective-admission high schools and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to change the time-honored path by which students gain entry to them; the dispute largely concerns how to ration the limited supply of a valued commodity in the face of mounting demand.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
The new PDK poll: Gems amid the gravel
For more than half a century now, back-to-school time has brought another Phi Delta Kappan survey of “the public’s attitudes toward the public schools.” They invariably recycle some familiar questions (e.g., the grades you would give your child’s schools and the nation’s schools). Other topics, however, come and go.
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Addressing high school dropout rates starting at the elementary school level
By Jeff Murray
Report
Charter Schools, Personalized Learning
What Teens Want From Their Schools: A National Survey of High School Student Engagement
Among high school students who consider dropping out, half cite lack of engagement with the school as a primary reason, and 42 percent report that they don’t see value in the schoolwork they are asked to do.
Report
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning
Enrollment and Achievement in Ohio's Virtual Charter Schools
This Fordham study, conducted by learning technology researcher June Ahn from NYU, dives into one of the most promising—and contentious—issues in education today: virtual schools. What type of students choose them? Which online courses do students take? Do virtual schools lead to improved outcomes for kids?
Report
Personalized Learning
Expanding the Education Universe: A Fifty-State Strategy for Course Choice
After twenty years of expanding school-choice options, state leaders, educators, and families have a new tool: course choice, a strategy for students to learn from unconventional providers that might range from top-tier universities or innovative community colleges to local employers, labs, or hospitals.
