Displaying 271-300 of 1452 results
Commentary
4.14.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Democracy dies without trust and truth: Strengthen civics education

Walter Parker

The two pillars of democracy—trust and truth—are now cracked. Many Americans believe the political system is corrupt (e.g., rigged, racist), and some don’t believe the results of elections, even certifiably fair ones. Related, we have lost a shared standard of truth and, with it, shared criteria for distinguishing fact from falsehood.

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
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Progressive schools aren’t the problem

Ethan Gray

I read with interest Daniel Buck’s recent piece, “The agonizing individualism of progressive education.” In his view, progressive schools fail to uphold communitarian values by overemphasizing individualism.

Commentary
4.5.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

The wonderful but weighty challenges of parenting a gifted child

Victoria McDougald

Until my oldest child entered elementary school last fall, I was blissfully ignorant about giftedness and the extent to which it colors and affects a young child’s educational experience. My husband and I have always been amazed at our son’s busy brain and body, as well as exhausted by his limitless energy, boundless curiosity, and never-ending questions.

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
3.30.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Rewrite attendance laws to promote learning, not seat time

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Two depressing developments of the past couple years have given birth to a radical idea: Let’s rethink state “compulsory attendance” laws so that they’re phrased in terms of kids learning rather than years in school. First is evidence that lots of students who need it don’t avail themselves of high-dose tutoring when available. Second is the growing number of districts and schools that are moving to four-day weeks.

Commentary
3.30.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The agonizing individualism of progressive education

Daniel Buck

Perhaps my favorite moment teaching this year came as my class finished reading Of Mice and Men. In the final moments of the story, one character executes his friend to save him from a far worse fate. It’s sudden and thus shocking. I set them to read this final scene silently. The faster readers finished first. I watched eyes widen and flit faster from word to word.

Commentary
3.30.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

High schoolers don’t graduate with the learning habits to succeed in college

Nathaniel Grossman

Much of my work as a kindergarten teacher was teaching young children how to be students. Even the routine for “circle time” on the carpet required days, if not weeks, of explicit practice. Making eye contact, waiting one’s turn to speak, and ignoring distractions are skills so basic that it’s easy to forget that they don’t come naturally to many kids.

Commentary
3.24.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How the “math wars” are different from the “reading wars”

Natalie Wexler

Debates over how to teach math echo the conflicts over reading instruction, and some issues are similar. But unlike math, reading—in its full sense—draws on everything a person has been able to learn.

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

Charter schools make district schools more efficient

David Griffith

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
3.17.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Keep the tests, but reform the test prep

Emily Freitag

When I started Instruction Partners and began working deeply and regularly with multiple school systems, I was surprised by some patterns. The same motivational quotes were in almost every school hallway. Many teachers' lounges had the same air freshener. There was a similar tension between certain departments in almost every district.

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
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

To improve student outcomes, ask teachers to do fewer things better

Robert Pondiscio, Jessica Schurz

We are seeking to raise and enhance the capacities of teachers while, at the same time, placing ever greater burdens on them. But the inconvenient fact is that the nation needs nearly 4 million people to teach its children, and any number that large means the men and women who staff our schools and teach our children will be, by definition, ordinary people.

Commentary
3.7.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

“Because equity” is not a good reason to lower standards

Michael J. Petrilli

Noble is the desire to bend our system toward the needs of our most disadvantaged students—students who are disproportionately poor, Black, and Brown. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this. Leveling up is the right way. Leveling down is the wrong way. Expanding access and opportunity is the right way. Lowering standards is the wrong way. Guess which way is gaining steam?

Commentary
3.2.2023
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We’d be paying teachers far more if we’d chosen quality over quantity

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Almost everyone wants to raise teacher pay. The push comes in various forms and from various places—mostly recently a proposal by Congressional liberals to create a $60,000 floor under teacher salaries. Yet we’d have far more generous teacher pay today if we hadn’t opted to hire more teachers and support staff over the years rather than raising salaries.

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

Commentary
2.24.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The Mississippi reading model continues to shine

Todd Collins

Mississippi’s model for improving early literacy has been a standout since 2019, based on its nation-leading achievement growth on the fourth grade NAEP reading test.