Evidence-Based Learning

Displaying 721-750 of 837 results
Commentary
5.3.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Developing students’ social and emotional skills may be more important now than ever

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How to pump the Acceleration Imperative up to full speed

Kalman R. Hettleman

Think of Michael Petrilli’s bold ideas and the Acceleration Imperative as newly designed Ford(ham) vehicles for K–12 recovery from the pandemic. Happily, there is much to admire in the showroom.

Commentary
4.29.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

How parents determine childcare quality

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Numerous studies have found that the quality of child care is too low and that we need to do more to

Commentary
4.28.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How to adopt and implement a high-quality elementary mathematics curriculum

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.22.2021
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Testing, SpaceX, and the quest for consensus

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

A suite of technologies that are already widely used in some private-sector testing can and should be embraced by state and national assessments, as well as the private tests that aren’t yet making maximum use of them. Read more.

Commentary
4.22.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Six principles for high-quality, effective writing instruction for all students

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.

Commentary
4.22.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance

How does money matter for schools?

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

The “Does money matter?” debate has been getting boring. The idea that increasing school spending wouldn’t make the schools work at least a little better probably never made much sense to begin with.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

An ode to elementary schools

Michael J. Petrilli

If I had to name the most important institution in American life, and the one with the most potential for changing the course of our country, it would be the humble elementary school. Especially the 20,000 or so high-poverty elementary schools in the nation’s cities and inner-ring suburbs, educating millions of kids growing up in poor or working-class families.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Can teaching be improved by law?

Robert Pondiscio

If there’s one lesson education policymakers might have learned in the last twenty-five years, it’s that it’s not hard to make schools and districts do something, but it’s extremely hard to make them do it well.

Commentary
4.15.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Mentors’ effect on middle school attendance

Melissa Gutwein

More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, lost instructional time is top of mind for anyone connected to education.

Commentary
4.12.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A different K–12 world: Teens and parents on Covid-19 shock and schools

Bruno V. Manno

In the song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan penned an iconic refrain that asks: “But something is happening/And ya’ don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?” That refrain seems an apt way to describe what K–12 education stakeholders are sensing as they reel in response to Covid-19 shock.

Commentary
3.25.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How districts and charter networks can best address unfinished learning

Michael J. Petrilli

Fordham’s new resource, “The Acceleration Imperative,” aims to give the nation’s chief academic officers a head start on planning for America’s educational recovery, with a focus on high-poverty elementary schools. It’s intentionally a work in progress, and already the product of thoughtful advice from more than three dozen experts. The intention is for it to continue evolving and improving with readers’ help, via a “crowdsourced” initiative on a new wiki site.

Commentary
3.25.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The role of out-of-school supports in boosting academic outcomes

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Jeff Murray

Structured activities and services provided outside of the regular school day were increasingly the focus of public investment in the U.S. prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Commentary
3.18.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Beware the calls for post-Covid innovation

Dale Chu

Now that Uncle Sam’s check is in the mail, one of the biggest hopes for schools is that they will be able to leverage the massive infusion of cash to be more creative, imaginative, and innovative.

Commentary
3.11.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Addressing learning loss in one easy lesson

Robert Pondiscio

One of the best-selling education books of the Covid era is one you’ve probably never read and maybe never even heard of. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was written nearly forty years ago by Siegfried Engelmann, who passed away in 2019.

Report
3.10.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning

The narrow path to do it right: Lessons from vaccine making for high-dosage tutoring

Mike Goldstein, Bowen Paulle

High-dosage tutoring is receiving a lot of buzz as a promising tool to address learning loss in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. But unlike vaccines, successful tutoring programs are challenging to scale with fidelity. In this paper, long-time educators Michael Goldstein and Bowen Paulle explain how leaders can smartly scale promising tutoring programs that can boost student outcomes.

Commentary
3.4.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Personalized learning for the wee ones in the wake of the pandemic, Part I

Michael J. Petrilli

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.

Commentary
3.4.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Digging deeply into the data on school turnarounds

Olivia Piontek

States embraced school turnaround efforts in the wake of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in the early 2000s. These took various forms at first, as each state pursued their own turnaround strategies per NCLB’s requirements.

Commentary
2.25.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education

Assessing the value of community college credentials

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

The return on investment for four-year college degrees is fairly well-established in terms of graduates’ employment and

Commentary
2.23.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

Gen Z and Millennials are bullish on their futures and critical about today’s schools

Bruno V. Manno

Generation Z and Millennials are optimistic about their future and confident it will be filled with opportunity, despite the pandemic and other problems they face. Two in three (67 percent) believe they “have the opportunity to achieve the American dream,” with more than one in two (56 percent) saying “all people in my generation” can achieve it.

Commentary
2.18.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Are classroom instructional materials meeting the needs of English learners?

Julie Fitz

Back in May 2020, The U.S. Department of Education had to issue guidance clarifying that, yes, schools and districts were still required to provide language instruction services for English learners (EL) during remote learning.

Commentary
2.11.2021
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Literacy is equity

Robert Pondiscio

Any discussion about “equity” in education that is not first and foremost a discussion about literacy is unserious.

Commentary
2.9.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools

Are charter schools a drain on district finances?

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

Should President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to grant local school districts veto power over the creation of new charter schools within their borders, on the assumption that their expansion harms traditional public schools?

Commentary
1.28.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Merit aid and college outcomes

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

For many years, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (STBF) in Nebraska has provided full-ride college scholarships to eligible high school graduates in the state. This randomized study examines how such largesse affects higher education enrollment and degree completion.

Commentary
1.20.2021
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The pandemic dims a beacon of school improvement

Josh Boots

For the past decade, Washington, D.C., schools have shone as a success story, with achievement for all students rising steadily in elementary and middle schools and more quickly than the national average.