Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Has the pendulum swung too far away from college for all?
College is on my mind because of two recent tidbits.
Curriculum & Instruction
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Trump team gives Head Start the DOGE treatment
The past two weeks have seen a growing ruckus over big changes in the Head Start regs that are reportedly nearing completion by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The reading crisis is changing the conversation
During my years at TIME magazine, the newsroom had a rule of thumb: If something happens once, it’s news. Twice is a coincidence. Three times? That’s a trend.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
Against the Pinterest classroom
We’ve all visited those classrooms. They look like 30-gallon bags full of confetti, crepe paper, and Elmer’s glue exploded in the center. The bulletin boards are a mess of student work and neon posters, arts and crafts projects dangle from the ceiling, and groups of desks are buried in tassels and decorations. Must a classroom be a confusing and unrelenting assault on the senses?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Don’t give up on foreign language education
In a recent edition of his SCHOOLED newsletter, Mike Petrilli called on U.S. high schools to stop pretending to teach foreign languages. Who decides whether they are taught at all?
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
New NAEP data show boys have made a historic comeback in reading. Is it too good to be true?
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Should you redshirt your kindergartner?
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Career & Technical Education, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Good programs aren’t enough: States need a work-based learning strategy
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
“Saving” the humanities
The current issue of The Atlantic proclaims the demise of reading—the act at the heart of the humanities.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How to make the high school diploma mean something again
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.
Commentary
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice
Religious liberty in education: Back to the Supreme Court
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.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
Can schools escape the digital delusion? | Episode 1026 of The Education Gadfly Show
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
There’s actually more to the i-Ready story: A rebuttal
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Texas has a theory of education
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Through-year assessments can improve a broken testing system
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
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Sixteen years later, what did NYC’s small schools accomplish?
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Kids ready for advanced math should get it automatically
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.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Honest talk about who should go to college
Editor’s note: This was first published as part of a newsletter for Mike’s Substack, SCHOOLED.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Civics, citizenship, and America 250
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
There’s more to the i-Ready story
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Creating more pathways isn’t enough. They need to work, too.
For several decades, K–12 ed-reformers and policy leaders have pushed to expand public school options and pathways.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice
The case for including early childhood education in education choice programs
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
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
Instructionally-aligned tutoring and student literacy outcomes
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What a recent survey tells us about teachers and the science of reading
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How can states and systems help teacher preparation programs with the science of reading?
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
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Mixed-achievement math classrooms are a net negative
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Why is Gen Z obsessed with technology?
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Flawed curricular materials aren’t the only reason students aren’t reading enough whole books
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
If school boards approve curriculum, they should understand it
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Everyone loves recess, but should states mandate it?
From Oklahoma to California, states across the political spectrum are moving to require
