Evidence-Based Learning

Displaying 451-480 of 837 results
Commentary
5.11.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Do charter schools improve outcomes for English learners?

David Griffith, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

The number of English learners in charter schools has increased markedly in recent years, but our knowledge of how well charters serve these students hasn’t kept pace with that growth. That’s why we conducted our new study, "Charter Schools and English Learners in the Lone Star State." It finds, among other things, that compared to their traditional public school peers, English learners in Texas charters are more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college. They also earn more money in the post-college years.

Commentary
5.11.2023
Evidence-Based Learning

Are video games a valid extracurricular activity or a time sink?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

While life is more normal now than it was two years ago, pandemic lockdowns and school building closures that once kept young people inside and online have likely altered behavior for the foreseeable future.

Commentary
5.5.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

High-achieving middle schoolers fare poorly in U.S. history and civics, finds NAEP, but that’s nothing new

Brandon L. Wright

Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.

Commentary
5.4.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

History and civics scores still falling, reports NAEP

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Aaargh. Here we go again. The new National Assessment civics and history results are as deplorable as they were predictable. Whether they’ll also serve as the action-forcer that we need is far from certain.

Commentary
5.4.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Putting the Core Knowledge study into perspective

Natalie Wexler

A recent study finding dramatic boosts in reading achievement from a knowledge-building curriculum has come in for criticism, some of it well-taken. But the study should be seen as just one more piece of evidence casting serious doubt on standard literacy instruction.

Commentary
4.28.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Standards

“A Nation at Risk” still has a message for today, forty years later

Bruno V. Manno

This April marks forty years since the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its blockbuster report “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” The commission, which worked for eighteen months, was created in August 1981 by U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel Bell early in his tenure with President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Commentary
4.27.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Advanced Education

Should selective high school admissions be decided by a one-shot test?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

How to select students for advanced or elite academic programs has long been controversial. Critics of “holistic” admissions policies argue they often turn to mush—or inject bias into the process. At the other extreme, a few programs use nothing more than a single assessment to determine placement.

Commentary
4.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning

The problematic variation in socioeconomic status measures

William Rost

Countless studies on education incorporate measures of socioeconomic status (SES). But this metric is, perhaps surprisingly, rather ill-defined and has incorporated many varying components since its inception in the early twentieth century.

Commentary
4.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

An early analysis of a one-to-one tutoring model

Jeff Murray

Providing students with tutoring in addition to in-class learning time is an oft-prescribed remedy for both catching up students who are behind and accelerating students who are capable of even higher performance. Two common sticking points to providing that remedy are finding additional time in the day, week, or year for the intervention and finding enough qualified personnel.

Commentary
4.13.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

At long last, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. gets his due: New research shows big benefits from Core Knowledge

Robert Pondiscio

A new study demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The working paper offers compelling evidence to support what many of us have long believed: Hirsch has been right all along about what it takes to build reading comprehension.

Commentary
4.13.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The extended case for faith-based charter schools

Andy Smarick

A little-noticed event in late 2022 destabilized a pillar of contemporary American K–12 education, namely that all schools considered part of the public system must be secular.

Commentary
4.7.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

States blazing the trail towards mastery instead of seat time

Jonathan Alfuth

In his March 30 Flypaper piece, “Rewrite attendance laws to promote learning, not seat time,” Chester Finn makes the case for reorienting school around student achievement rather than time spent in class.

Commentary
4.6.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Third grade reading retention is right

Jessica Poiner

In 2022, seventeen states mandated that schools hold back students who aren’t meeting reading standards by the end of third grade, and eight others allowed it.

Commentary
4.6.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

More accurate identification of low-performing schools through math

Jeff Murray

As school accountability systems reset following pandemic disruptions, an opportunity arises to improve their accuracy and make sure the intended responses to data resulting from them are properly tuned. A new study from the U.S.

Commentary
4.2.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Yes, good schools matter for low-income kids

Chad Aldeman

As someone who’s had firsthand experience in the ups and downs of the education reform movement, I agree with Matthew Yglesias calling it a “strange death.” Reformers did over-promise, and they did fail at scaling up once-promising ideas.

Commentary
3.23.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance

Charter schools make district schools more efficient

David Griffith, Ph.D.

Districts that lose students to charter schools can and ultimately will adjust their behavior. And indeed, recent research implies that, while charters marginally reduce districts’ total revenues per pupil, they also make them more efficient. The challenge for policymakers is managing whatever transition costs may be associated with moving to a more choice-based system in a way that is fair to students and taxpayers.

Commentary
3.22.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

States can improve equity and outcomes in gifted education, but too many aren’t trying

Brandon L. Wright

Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

We know student effort matters, so let’s start acting like it

Eva Moskowitz

Student effort is the secret sauce at Success Academy charter schools, says their founder and CEO, and they teach and celebrate it religiously. Indeed, after seventeen years of educating tens of thousands of students, careful analysis of homework, classwork, and assessment data has taught the Success Academy team that a large proportion of errors, up to 70 percent, don’t result from not knowing or understanding the content, but from a lack of care and attention to detail.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We must return to the core mission of education: academic learning

David Steiner

It’s a familiar and dreary tale. For twenty years, the math and reading learning outcomes of our nation’s twelfth graders have been flat. More recently, the performance gap between the wealthiest and poorest students has widened, while between Black and White students the previous gap-closing has stalled.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How teachers affect students’ perceptions of school climate

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Once inside, it doesn’t take long to soak up the climate of a school. A simple walk down the hallway can give you clues. Is it clean? Are the bulletin boards up to date? Can you hear the energetic buzz of learning versus the cacophony of bad behavior? Do students and teachers greet you with a smile or a cold shoulder?

Commentary
3.9.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

“District innovation”: Not an oxymoron?

Jeff Murray

The latest report from UVA’s Partnership for Leaders in Education is breathlessly upbeat about the opportunities for radical, disruptive changes in K–12 education.

Commentary
3.2.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

No, Professor Boaler, we should not stop talking about learning loss

Nathaniel Grossman

Recently, Jo Boaler—a Stanford professor and one of the country’s foremost scholars of mathematics—took to the Hechinger Report to write about pandemic learning loss