Bullish but far from sanguine is how I view the ambitious history-and-civics “roadmap” unveiled
Yes, I blurbed it—and I like it. Yes, a visitor to our home, a worldly and skeptical sort, hefted it and looked at the title and asked me “Isn’t that awfully thick for a book about optimism regarding American public education?”
A lot of us have been confused, angry, and frustrated by the reluctance of some teachers, and particularly their unions, to resume in-person instruction.
As English learners approach language proficiency, does it matter whether they continue to receive English language instruction? A recent paper published in Economics of Education Review seeks to answer this question for English learners in Minnesota.
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.
Any discussion about “equity” in education that is not first and foremost a discussion about literacy is unserious.
Why do some students succeed and others lag behind? This is, of course, a central question in education policy.
Recent work published in the Journal of Labor Economics examines how school segregation may be related to racial gaps in special education identification.
If the pandemic vanished tomorrow and all U.S. schools instantly reopened in exactly the same fashion as they were operating last February, how many parents would be satisfied to return their daughters and sons to the same old familiar classrooms, teachers, schedules and curricula? A lot fewer than the same old schools and those who run and teach in them are expecting back!
The father testifying before Virginia’s Loudon County school board
Predicting the effects of pandemic-related disruption on students’ education is a vital but fraught pursuit.
Editor’s note: This interview was first published by Rick Hess on his blog with Education Week, Rick Hess Straight Up.
Let’s start with a little game. Trust me, it will be helpful if you play along… Grab a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Complete the following sentence: First-year or early-career teachers typically struggle most with… (Try to come up with a few answers.)
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies that schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
Despite the burgeoning interest in “high-quality instructional materials” (HQIM) and energetic efforts in recent years to incentivize their use, “evidence is mixed on how much teachers actually use the materials that districts or schools adopt,” note the authors of a new research report from the RAND Corporation.
A few months ago, I wrote an article about Covid-19 learning loss and t
Among the many reasons equity advocates are celebrating new leadership in Washington is the hope that President Biden and Secretary of Education-designate Cardona will do more to help students with disabilities. These kids struggled mightily in school before the pandemic, and no group of students has suffered more from remote and hybrid learning.
Still reeling from the assault on the Capitol and the subsequent impeachment effort against Former President Trump, the education sphere’s attention has understandably returned to the need to resuscitate the teaching of civics and history. If schools did a better job of grounding our students in the principles of a free society and a basic understanding of U.S.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts about envelope-pushing strategies schools might embrace to address students’ learning loss in the wake of the pandemic.
History, well taught, equips students with the ability to see through current crises. Civics, well taught, fosters in every heart an investment in democratic processes and a respect bordering on reverence for the rule of law.
As the world struggles through some of the darkest days of the pandemic, and more schools shift back to remote learning, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute are spending most of our time thinking about what comes next: educational recovery.
Nearly every day, social media plucks some poor, anonymous face in the crowd from obscurity and makes him famous. If you’re making New Year’s Resolutions this year, one should be never to be that guy.
Despite a stampede of interest in students’ social-emotional development (SED), gathering data on—and measuring the success of—such initiatives remain
Editor’s note: This is the final post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
Study after study has found that urban charter schools, and non-profit charter networks in particular, tend to be more successful at boosting student achievement than traditional public schools in similar settings. But why?
Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
Editor’s note: This is the third post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
I became a disciple of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. early in my teaching career for one simple reason. His theories about reading comprehension—and his alone—described precisely what I witnessed every day in my South Bronx fifth grade classroom: children who could “decode” (read the words on the page) but struggled to comprehend the words they read.
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a five-part series about how to effectively scale-up high-dosage tutoring.
