High-quality early childhood education (ECE) offers a promising means of boosting both achievement and equity, yet districts and states across the nation face educator
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly. Are teachers interchangeable parts?
For the past several months, Petrilli been pumping out posts about “doing educational equity right.” This series concludes with a twist by looking at three ways that schools are doing educational equity wrong: by engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations, tying teachers’ hands without good reason, and acting like equity isn’t just an important thing, but the only thing.
Last weekend, I gave a talk at the U.S.
In the mid-1970s, Ference Marton and Roger Säljö of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden noticed that their students took different approaches to learning.
Last week, I did something unorthodox. I asked teachers to message me directly via X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their frustrations. Within hours, I received almost 200 messages expressing not only frustration, but also hope, humor, fatalism, and quite a bit of hesitancy to converse with a complete stranger on the internet.
The closure of schools in response to the seismic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on education worldwide. As nations grappled with closures lasting varying lengths of time, the implications for student learning became increasingly evident.
Congress is currently considering legislation to update the way that the federal government funds education research and development.
New York City public schools offer two types of gifted and talented education.
For many students and teachers, the pivot from in-person to remote learning in March 2020 was a sudden lurch from the known to the unknown. Writ large, research shows the academic impact of that move was devastating. But details matter—and so do exceptions.
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, The Education Daly.
Many of the conditions that led to the prominence of “no-excuses” charter schools a quarter-century ago have returned. For students, teachers, and parents who have never lost their appetite for safe and orderly schools, it can’t come soon enough.
I recently watched a seventh-grade math lesson that did a better job than I ever did as a teacher asking kids relatable theoretical probability questions. How would you represent the probability of a six-foot-tall seventh grader? How would you represent the probability of getting a test in school in any given week? Making sense of where students were coming from was a fascinating puzzle.
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
The way we grade student work is flawed—in some ways inequitable—and is in need of reform. But like so many things in American education, the push for “equitable grading” has often been implemented piecemeal, bringing along with it all manner of unintended consequences, the most important of which is lowered standards.
The push for more “equitable” grading policies has exacerbated grade inflation while yielding little evidence of greater learning. Some aspects of traditional grading can indeed perpetuate inequities, but top-down policies that make grading more lenient are not the answer, especially as schools grapple with the academic and behavioral challenges of the post-pandemic era.
My friend Michael Petrilli just wrote a great essay about the “homework gap.” He sets aside the upper-class question (stressed out kids with too much of it) and steers readers to the gap (some kids do what’s assigned, some kids copy and cheat, and some kids skip it).
If we care about doing educational equity right, we need to call the bluff of those who want to lower expectations for students’ effort “because equity.” Those so-called advocates need to do some of their own homework—and penance—as well.
Marginalized students have long lacked access to advanced education programs in the U.S., compared to more advantaged peers, and have been under-identified and therefore underserved when such programs exist.
My students caught me smelling an old book once. While they were silently reading one day, I noticed a tattered book on the shelf. So what did I do? Following deep instincts, I pulled it down, cracked the spine, and breathed deeply. “Mr. Buck, what are you DOING?!” I turned around to find the whole class staring at me.
Many states are overhauling their early literacy policies to align with the science of reading, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge building. Effectively implementing these reforms is crucial, as high-quality reading instruction can improve both academic and life outcomes for children.
Better late than never, New York State has stirred itself to change the way reading is taught in its 800-plus local school districts. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to spend $10 million to train 20,000 teachers in the “science of reading,” including a “microcredentialing” program via the state’s public universities. Assuming the legislature grants the request, here’s how New York could maximize the program’s impact.
As the population of English learners (ELs) in grades K–12 grows, so do the challenges school districts face in identifying gifted students and putting in place appropriate enrichment and acceleration opportunities for them.
This is the fourth in a series on doing educational equity right.
Equitably funding education in America means providing more resources to students who need additional support.
Khaya Njumbe enrolled at GEO Academies’ 21st Century Charter School, in Gary, Indiana, when he was eleven years old. By age thirteen, he’d become the youngest student in state history to earn an associate degree.
Shortly before schools—and Fordham—shuttered their doors for the holiday break, Tim Daly asked a simple question in these pages: Should schools ban smart phones?
As former teachers in a variety of settings—charter, traditional public, and “transfer” schools—we read with great interest our colleague Daniel Buck’s recent piece, “In defense of the traditional classroom
The education world lost a true reformer on Christmas Day—and the charter-school world lost one of its true heroes—when Linda Brown passed away at eighty-one at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Truancy” may no longer be the right word for it, maybe not even “absenteeism,” for both imply being missing from a place where one is supposed to be. “Truancy,” with its overtone of misbehavior and illegality, suggests willfulness, i.e., that one is intentionally missing, while “absenteeism” is a more neutral term with no suggestion of motive.
