Evidence-Based Learning

Displaying 331-360 of 837 results
Student putting a laptop away
Commentary
4.18.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Next, curtail the Chromebooks

Daniel Buck

Phone bans are the hottest education policy since banning critical race theory. Districts across the country are strictly limiting their use, locking them in Yondr bags, or confiscating and sealing them away before the first bell. The next step in making classrooms conducive to teaching and learning: limiting the laptops.

Student putting a laptop away
Globe and world map
Commentary
4.18.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Are America’s schools ready for World War III?

Dale Chu

Noah Smith, writing in his Substack newsletter last week, argues that Americans are imprudently burying their heads in the sand at the increasing prospect of a global Sino-American clash.

Globe and world map
Teacher writing on chalkboard
Commentary
4.15.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How did teacher evaluation become a thing?

Tim Daly

Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly. Are teachers interchangeable parts?

Teacher writing on chalkboard
Line graph pointing down
Commentary
4.11.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Doing educational equity wrong

Michael J. Petrilli

For the past several months, Petrilli been pumping out posts about “doing educational equity right.” This series concludes with a twist by looking at three ways that schools are doing educational equity wrong: by engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations, tying teachers’ hands without good reason, and acting like equity isn’t just an important thing, but the only thing.

Line graph pointing down
Bored teen student at home doing homework
Commentary
4.9.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Lengthy school closures were especially hard on high achievers

Brandon L. Wright

To gauge the magnitude of global learning loss during the pandemic, a team at the World Bank examined data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2018–2022, which tests fifteen-year-olds in math, reading, and science.

Bored teen student at home doing homework
Hammer piggy bank
Commentary
4.4.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

School choice need not mean an expensive windfall for the rich

Michael J. Petrilli

The school choice movement continues to rack up dramatic wins nationwide. This growth in “educational freedom,” as many advocates now call it, is a fantastic development. But under the surface of these victories, an important debate is brewing: how to balance the drive for maximum choice with other values, including fiscal responsibility and fairness.

Hammer piggy bank
Test scantron
Commentary
4.4.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning

What TIMSS and PISA have in common

Jeff Murray

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are arguably the most important international tests in education. Both have been administered for decades in dozens of countries. Each new set of student outcomes is tracked, analyzed, and endlessly written about.

Test scantron
School closed sign
Commentary
3.28.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

How the pandemic affected global education: Insights from PISA

Harry Anthony Patrinos

The closure of schools in response to the seismic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on education worldwide. As nations grappled with closures lasting varying lengths of time, the implications for student learning became increasingly evident.

School closed sign
Child doing homework
Commentary
3.21.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How an online tool affected math performance during pandemic closures

Jeff Murray

For many students and teachers, the pivot from in-person to remote learning in March 2020 was a sudden lurch from the known to the unknown. Writ large, research shows the academic impact of that move was devastating. But details matter—and so do exceptions.

Child doing homework
Student doing math in a classroom
Commentary
3.14.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

We know more about improving math outcomes than policy debates suggest

Emily Freitag

I recently watched a seventh-grade math lesson that did a better job than I ever did as a teacher asking kids relatable theoretical probability questions. How would you represent the probability of a six-foot-tall seventh grader? How would you represent the probability of getting a test in school in any given week? Making sense of where students were coming from was a fascinating puzzle.

Student doing math in a classroom
Student report card
Commentary
3.7.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Doing educational equity right: Grading

Michael J. Petrilli

The way we grade student work is flawed—in some ways inequitable—and is in need of reform. But like so many things in American education, the push for “equitable grading” has often been implemented piecemeal, bringing along with it all manner of unintended consequences, the most important of which is lowered standards.

Student report card
Students raising their hands in a school classroom
Commentary
3.7.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

The research is clear: Charter schools work

Daniel Buck

Late last year, researchers Sarah Cohodes and Susha Roy partnered with the MIT Department of Economics to release a paper summarizing the results of lottery-based charter studies. The topline conclusion is straightforward and promising:

Students raising their hands in a school classroom
Standardized test in school
Commentary
3.1.2024
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The way we set grade-level norms on tests masks pandemic learning loss

Woody Paik

There are, generally speaking, two ways to report students’ performance on tests. One is normative, and it compares a student’s performance to his peers. The second is criterion, and it compares a student’s performance to learning standards, indicating grade-level proficiency and is independent of peers’ test performance.

Standardized test in school
school report card
Commentary
2.29.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The hazards of “equity grading”

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D., Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

The push for more “equitable” grading policies has exacerbated grade inflation while yielding little evidence of greater learning. Some aspects of traditional grading can indeed perpetuate inequities, but top-down policies that make grading more lenient are not the answer, especially as schools grapple with the academic and behavioral challenges of the post-pandemic era.

school report card
Teacher in classroom
Commentary
2.29.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Study outlier teachers to solve the homework gap

Mike Goldstein

My friend Michael Petrilli just wrote a great essay about the “homework gap.” He sets aside the upper-class question (stressed out kids with too much of it) and steers readers to the gap (some kids do what’s assigned, some kids copy and cheat, and some kids skip it).

Teacher in classroom
Female student doing homework
Commentary
2.22.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Doing educational equity right: The homework gap

Michael J. Petrilli

If we care about doing educational equity right, we need to call the bluff of those who want to lower expectations for students’ effort “because equity.” Those so-called advocates need to do some of their own homework—and penance—as well.

Female student doing homework
Teacher in a classroom
Commentary
2.22.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Gag order? Or gag reflex?: State laws on teacher speech

Robert Pondiscio

A new report from PEN America claims that 1.3 million teachers, roughly a third of full-time classroom staff in the United States, are now forced to work under “educational gag orders.” PEN tallies forty pieces of legislation restricting teacher speech across twenty-two states as of November 1, 2023.

Teacher in a classroom
Black student doing math in school
Commentary
2.21.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Why schools are failing to narrow excellence gaps in math

Jeff Murray, Brandon L. Wright

Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist.

Black student doing math in school
Commentary
2.8.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

NCTQ analyzes how well states are using policy to promote the science of reading

Jessica Poiner

Many states are overhauling their early literacy policies to align with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge building. Effectively implementing these reforms is crucial, as high-quality reading instruction can improve both academic and life outcomes for children.

Commentary
2.1.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Grading New York’s “back to basics” reading plan

Robert Pondiscio

Better late than never, New York State has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Assuming the legislature grants the request, here’s how New York could maximize the program’s impact.