In a time of crisis, Catholic schools offered a choice, not an echo
“New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected,” the Economist tweeted recently to promote a
“New data suggest that the damage from shutting down schools has been worse than almost anyone expected,” the Economist tweeted recently to promote a
The universe of private elementary-secondary schooling in America today is diverse and confusing, with innumerable twists and turns in efforts to use public funds to help families access schools that suit them—including private schools of all colors and stripes. But the virtue of these institutions is that they’re different, which also means very different from each other. Which complicates the quest to deploy public dollars to assist families to choose them.
Calls are rising for America’s aging high-school model to modernize, in part by accommodating work experience through hands-on internships or actual employment for students.
Georgia is the latest on a growing list of states that make financial literacy courses a requirement for high school graduation.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Ashley Jochim, a principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, joins Mike
The influence of out-of-school activities such as sports and clubs on school outcomes has been an enduring
Earlier this year, I took to the pages of Education Next to make the case for NAEP to test starting in kindergarten, stating that, “The rationale for testing academic skills in the early elementary grades is powerful.” Therefore, “Starting NAEP in 4th grade is much too late.” I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Kindergarten is much too late. We must begin a program of NAEP testing for newborns.
Not all college majors are created alike, but it turns out that employers want their new hires to exhibit many of same skills regardless of what they major in. A recent study examines online job ads as a proxy for what employers view as the skills inherent in various college majors.
High school-age Americans struggling mightily with academics aren’t well served by our current approach to secondary education. But there may be a better model that would give them a more worthwhile experience and lead to better long-term outcomes: Let them take jobs while still in high school—during the school day, during both their junior and senior years, full pay included, no strings attached.
Remote learning is hard to love. The nation’s forced experiment in online education the past few years has been a disaster for kids. Educators and parents alike have come to view virtual learning as a necessary evil at best, an ad hoc response to a national crisis.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared some ideas about how schools and districts can move away from the well-intentioned but deeply flawed “college for all” mindset that has permeated the education reform world and has, in turn, harmed many of the disadvantaged students whom the approach is m
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast (listen on
The media have been full of
Opponents of school choice regularly criticize private schools for not taking all comers, contrasting them with traditional public schools, which they claim are open to all. But that’s not true in many places, especially wealthier suburbs, where public schools are typically restricted to students who live within geographic boundaries. Attending them requires a hefty mortgage and property taxes or sky-high rents that are out of the reach of low- and middle-income families.
As Michael Petrilli wrote in these pages a few weeks ago, the education reform movement has come to the realization that its belief in “college for all,” while well-intended, was misguided.
Tracking in our high schools is simply a fact, and we would do well to stop pretending otherwise or believing that it could be any other way. At the very least, we should allow for diverging paths after tenth grade, and we need to completely rethink our approach for our lowest-performing kids.
School choice is on the rise. In the last few decades, families have benefited from an explosion of educational options.
In many ways, the educational failures of the past several years—including those caused by the pandemic—were far worse than they needed to be because of long-standing characteristics of American public education. Namely, the tendency to place employees’ interests first, the disempowering of parents, and the failure to innovate.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast (listen on
One of the biggest shifts in education reform in recent years has been widening acknowledgment that the “college for all” mantra was misguided. Yet so far our commitment to “multiple pathways” to opportunity is almost all talk accompanied by very little action. High school course requirements and accountability systems continue to push almost all students into the college-prep track.
Editor’s note: This essay was first published by The 74.
While the ubiquitous term “college and career readiness” assumes that twelve years of compulsory education could adequately prepare a student for both postsecondary and workplace settings, we know far more about readiness for the former than the latter.
In 2012, Tennessee lawmakers created the Statewide Dual-Credit program (SDC) to help more students earn college credit while completing high school.
Among its many educational impacts, the pandemic has reenergized efforts to expand private school choice. States like Ohio, where it already existed, have expanded eligibility and increased funding.
Covid-19 sent a shock wave through an already changing U.S. job market, provoking “a great reassessment of work in America.”
Whether due to the pandemic, political opportunism, popular demand, or a combination, education savings accounts (ESAs) are enjoying much attention and growth
Last month, my colleagues Mike Petrilli and David Griffith had a conversation with Patrick Wolf, a leading school choice scholar at the University of Arkansas, about the impact of voucher programs on the Education Gadfly Show podcast.
Covid-19 school shock disrupted our way of doing education, unbundling the familiar division of responsibilities among home, school, and community organizations. Nearly every parent of school-age children had to create from scratch a home learning environment using online technology and rebundling school services to meet their needs.