A new white paper from NWEA, and its accompanying op-ed in The Hill, claim that districts are more likely to permanently shutter schools with a high proportion of poor and/or Black stud
As Americans are discovering during this summer’s World Cup, soccer often produces an outcome that is unsatisfying to our domestic sports sensibilities: a tie. One team controls possession while the other creates better scoring chances. Both leave the pitch claiming vindication, but neither gets to declare victory.
For several decades, K–12 ed-reformers and policy leaders have pushed to expand public school options and pathways.
While we are now several years removed from the pandemic, work continues to remediate its inadequate substitutes for in-person teaching and learning. Tutoring emerged as a favored response from schools.
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.
Choosing a college major requires young people to balance their interests, academic ability, future job prospects, and expected financial return. Some majors pay off right away with solid employment outcomes and high earnings, while others take years to fully realize returns—if indeed they ever do.
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
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.
For every dollar states spend on K–12 education, less than half a penny is earmarked for advanced learning. This surprising finding comes from our recent study of K–12 education spending in the U.S., generously supported by the Carina Initiative.
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.
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.
High school graduation season is upon us. Across the U.S., graduation rates are up—whether through grade inflation, credit recovery programs, or genuine persistence—while interest in traditional four-year college attendance wanes.
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.
A new Fordham report estimates the value of earning industry-recognized credentials and certificates as part of high school CTE pathways. The study provides some of the best evidence to date on the economic value of technical education that students can earn during high school. Now, Shaun Dougherty, one of the nation’s leading CTE scholars, puts the Plasman study in the context of the larger research literature.
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
Students can earn more than 1.8 million credentials in the United States today. We know education pays—particularly for those with a bachelor’s degree.
After decades of reading wars, policy stalemates, and children quietly falling behind, teachers across the country are embracing the science of reading. That finding comes from a new Fordham report, which also tells a harder story about what’s left to do.
Wide-ranging education reforms in New York City Public Schools in the early 2000s under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chief Joel Klein ran the gamut from school closures and consolidations to revamping acad
Once you learn to drive a car, you’re better equipped to drive a truck. Knowing how to drive a car might also help you to develop better decision-making skills. That’s because of a phenomenon called “learning transfer”: the application of skills and concepts learned in one context to another.
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.
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.
It’s been six years since the Covid-19 pandemic began disrupting education, and a varying number of years
Approximately 7.5 million U.S. students receive special education services in public schools—more than one in seven pupils nationwide.
Communities In Schools (CIS) is a program that addresses not only academic needs but also the personal, familial, and community barriers that hinder student success.
Hot on the heels of a recent report that postulated a lower-than-commonly-believed economic benefit of formal schooling comes a brand new analysis that offers more proof of high marginal returns to education. Who is winning the battle of the impact estimates?
2026 is a watershed moment for Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
The current system of residential assignment carries a lot of baggage. It also forces families into boxes where their largest investments (i.e., homes) are intrinsically tied to a single public school. This structure lacks the flexibility that should be afforded to students and their parents, especially as K–12 education is a deeply personal experience.
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.
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.
School leaders, teachers, and state policymakers all work to provide information to parents about the quality of education in their schools and about their own children’s academic performance. How do parents receive and—if needed—act on the information provided?
