New federal test score data from the long-term trend (LTT) report reveal a remarkable finding: For the first time in the 50 years of the assessment, nine-year-old boys are now scoring equally with girls in reading.
Across the U.S., nearly every state uses a child’s fifth birthday to determine when they can enter the public school system as kindergartners. If your child’s birthday falls just after the cut-off, those few extra days can mean an entire extra year at home or paying for preschool.
In Philadelphia, a young person leaving Launchpad Philly’s post-high school graduate training track is on pace to earn nearly $30,000 within nine months and $50,000 within one year. That far outpaces the roughly $12,500 a young Philadelphian with only a high school diploma typically earns.
The current issue of The Atlantic proclaims the demise of reading—the act at the heart of the humanities.
Career and technical education deserves its growing support but cannot compensate for a diploma that no longer signals readiness. States seeking stronger workforce and college pathways should start by restoring the credibility of the credential that every graduate receives.
The question of whether, when, and how public funding may flow to religious schools has been contested for more than 150 years, animated by the tension between the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which bars the state from sponsoring religion, and its Free Exercise Clause, which restricts the burdens that can be placed on religion.
Curriculum Associates CEO Kelly Sia recently defended her company’s flagship i-Ready platform to Fordham readers. The program, used by millions of students, has come under fire from teachers, parents, and students as part of an ed-tech backlash sweeping the nation.
Texas’s new social studies standards, required literature list, and curriculum have all drawn familiar charges of culture-war excess, with their inclusion of Bible stories, canonical books, and “patriotic” content. But taken together, these initiatives suggest something more consequential than conservative provocation. Read more.
In a recent Flypaper post, Dale Chu argues that the promise of a single assessment system doing multiple things well is “too good to be true.” He says that through-year assessments (TYA)—tests administered periodically throughout the school year that culminate in a summative score—are tryi
New York City’s Small Schools of Choice (SSC) program was one of a panoply of education reforms enacted in the early 2000s under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chief Joel Klein.
In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress Long Term Trends analysis, 23 percent of the 13-year-olds surveyed report that they are enrolled in Algebra I. For those seventh and eighth graders, that’s great news.
Editor’s note: This was first published as part of a newsletter for Mike’s Substack, SCHOOLED.
As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, civics education and American citizenship are receiving much attention. Yet recent surveys reveal widening generational and partisan divides over patriotism, the nation’s founding, and what schools should teach about American history. The findings are troubling even as the growing effort to strengthen civic knowledge and commitment offers some grounds for hope.
Editor’s note: The following piece is written by Kelly Sia, chief executive officer of Curriculum Associates, the company behind i-Ready, a widely used online assessment and instructional program for reading and math. In recent months, i-Ready has faced a wave of criticism concerning screen time, implementation, and the strength of the evidence supporting its effectiveness.
For several decades, K–12 ed-reformers and policy leaders have pushed to expand public school options and pathways.
Lately there has been a lot of discussion about whether states should opt in to the federal “Education Freedom Tax Credit”—a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individual contributions to nonprofit s
While we are now several years removed from the pandemic, work continues to remediate its inadequate substitutes for in-person teaching and learning. Tutoring emerged as a favored response from schools.
Editor’s note: This discussion between members of the Fordham research team and Kari Kurto, The Reading League’s National Director of Policy and Partnerships, comes in the wake of Fordham’s recent survey, From the Teacher’s Desk: A Science of Reading Progress Report.
For the last several years, as more than 40 states have invested in evidence-based literacy instruction, national attention has understandably focused on the K–12 implementation efforts that have the most direct impacts on students, including widely discussed change efforts like that in Mississippi
It’s much disputed in England whether grouping students by achievement level or mixing them together is a more effective strategy for teaching in secondary schools. This practice resembles achievement grouping in the U.S., particularly when done in specific subjects like math.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series written by Elainah Elkins and Jill Hoppe, born in 1999 and 2000, respectively. There is growing discourse surrounding Gen Z, but the voices of Gen Zers themselves are often missing from the conversation. This is their response.
For many of us born in the twentieth century, “English class” evokes memories of tattered copies of The Great Gatsby or Macbeth, chapter-a-night reading assignments, and that all-too-familiar sinking feeling when the next day’s pop quiz appeared.
School board members are possibly the most overlooked decision-makers in education, and they rarely dominate reform conversations. However, local school board members routinely approve one of the most important decisions school districts make: curriculum. As science of reading reforms accelerate across districts and states, this role is becoming more consequential—and more complicated.
From Oklahoma to California, states across the political spectrum are moving to require
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74. “We want to be good readers. We want to understand, not just get a good score on a test.”
Over the six years I taught high school, I tried every response to student cellphone use that was available to me: one warning, three warnings, no warnings; reacting to the mere sight of a phone, looking the other way if the use wasn’t conspicuous; calling the front office, calling the counselor, revisiting “classroom norms,” emailing parents, buying
Students can earn more than 1.8 million credentials in the United States today. We know education pays—particularly for those with a bachelor’s degree.
After decades of reading wars, policy stalemates, and children quietly falling behind, teachers across the country are embracing the science of reading. That finding comes from a new Fordham report, which also tells a harder story about what’s left to do.
Last week, I participated in a meeting with other policy wonks, debating (among other topics) whether all states should follow the lead of the Southern Surge rs and embrace a top-down approach to curriculum reform.
