Every once in a while, an older research paper pops back into the discourse unexpectedly and invites another look.
Much commentary has been offered on the literacy crisis plaguing the country. Massachusetts, often recognized as a leader in student achievement, has experienced the same challenge. Signs of the problem were clear in advance of the pandemic with NAEP fourth-grade reading proficiency rates falling from 50 percent to 45 percent between 2011 and 2019.
Teacher salary freezes haven’t gotten much attention in either the mainstream media or in education research. Rigorous studies explore the effects of teacher performance pay, teacher benefits, and much else, but Coffey couldn’t find a single study of pay freezes. Are they pushing teachers out of the profession?
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
As private school choice policies have proliferated and matured across the country, researchers have looked at the policy side of the process, as well as
Teachers hate it when the powers that be take a sledgehammer to their few sources of leverage over student motivation and effort. Nor do they like giving students grades they don’t deserve. How did we get here?
Student participation in career and technical education (CTE) has grown significantly in recent years, backed by bipartisan support and
The four-day school week has become one of the fastest-growing trends in American K–12 education, particularly in rural communities. By 2023, roughly 850 districts across 24 states had adopted the shorter week, up from about 600 before the pandemic.
Alternative certification programs can help schools to fill vacant teaching roles with eager and promising teaching candidates.
On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 30 percent of eighth-graders were proficient in read
If reading truly makes us smarter, then picture books are where smart begins. They give children access to sophisticated language, teach them how stories work, and lay the groundwork for background knowledge and cultural literacy.
Education savings accounts in Texas. Open enrollment in Missouri. Each week seems to bring a new story and more education options for American students.
What if a federal program reached four fifths of K–12 students nationwide for just 70 cents each, yielded a 9-to-1 return, seed-funded over 100 entrepreneurial education technology startups, and introduced AI and other novel solutions in classrooms? Skeptics might rightly raise an eyebrow.
For more than twenty-five years, Florida has been ground zero for school choice expansion. Among the many options for families are charter schools, private schools, tax-credit programs, microschools, ESAs, vouchers for students with special needs, homeschooling, and more.
Over the last few years, schools and teachers have begun to realize the importance of building students’ background knowledge when it comes to new learning.
The future of the U.S. economy and workforce relies on effective STEM education, and that education begins with the basics.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, schools can’t seem to shake chronic absenteeism, behavioral challenges, and
Rigorous research shows that boys and girls exhibit similar core numerical skills during infancy
Five years after the onset of the pandemic, schools continue to combat pandemic-era learning loss and chronic absenteeism. One evidence-based method to expedite learning recovery is high-impact tutoring.
The “college wage premium” is typically defined as the difference between average wages earned by workers with a four-year degree versus those earned by workers with a high school diploma. For decades, the premium for degree completers has been substantial, and remains so today.
Overall college attendance has declined in recent years, with persistent and widening gaps in access and retention along racial and
Dr. Amber Northern, Fordham’s longtime research chief, has been tapped to redesign the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. As she begins this important work, Checker Finn outlines the history of IES, highlighting progress, shortcomings, and the challenges she faces in this new role
Introduced in 2002 as part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was one of the best ideas in federal education policy—and one of its worst executions in recent memory.
Ask most people where student achievement is strongest, and they’ll point to the Northeast: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut—the usual suspects. And that’s been mostly true. These states have stronger tax bases and serve (on average) wealthier populations. They have long invested more in public education and built systems to protect it.
The Gates Foundation’s support for education reform has done much good. As the Foundation expends vast sums during its final twenty years, Finn urges Bill Gates to use his resources—financial, yes, but also influence—to press for fundamental changes in K–12 policies and practices.
A new wave of middle school math policies is poised to reshape who gets access to advanced math options, and when.
Earlier this month, Dana Goldstein of the New York Times argued that both political parties have abandoned the ed-reform agenda. Michael Petrilli responds, offering a robust agenda that would actually bring marked improvements to public schools.
Pandemic school disruptions, frustrations with ineffective reading methods, and sinking test scores lit a fire under the nascent science of reading movement which has borne fruit
Early in my tenure at the education policy organization I founded, we barely had any money. No money meant no lobbyist, which left me, a complete stranger to the legislative process, to figure out how to pass meaningful policy.
Back in 2015, three Ohio community colleges launched The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), a comprehensive suite of supports meant to help new community college students persist in school and complete a degree in three years or less. Across three studies, evaluation partner MDRC has tracked longer-term outcomes via a randomized controlled trial. It just released a fourth.
