Curriculum & Instruction

Displaying 451-480 of 1594 results
Commentary
10.12.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

There’s no Republican or Democrat way to teach reading

Robert Pondiscio

There are forty-four phonemes that make up every word in the English language. Some of these small units of sound occur more frequently than others, but none can be dispensed with entirely when teaching children to sound out words and read with fluency—not even the phoneme /d/ as in “Democrat” or /r/ as in “Republican.”

Commentary
10.5.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Can a licensure test accurately assess CTE teacher competency?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

There is plentiful research suggesting that, among in-school factors, teachers consistently matter the most when it comes to student testing outcomes.

Commentary
10.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

One cheer for New York City’s efforts on advanced education

Brandon L. Wright, Daniel Buck

When former mayor Bill de Blasio promised to dismantle New York City’s gifted education programs, then-candidate Eric Adams laudably promised to save, reform and expand them.  Since taking the helm, howev

Commentary
9.28.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

ChatGPT hasn’t killed the academic essay

Daniel Buck

An academic essay is an end in itself. It teaches, among other things, control of language, how to organize thoughts and structure them such that a reader can easily follow them, how to state an argument clearly upfront, how to hook a reader’s interest, and how to conclude in a concise, powerful way. AI will not change this.

Commentary
9.28.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders

Students’ ignorance of U.S. history and civics remains a national embarrassment

Robert Pondiscio

A new study from a pair of Penn State University researchers finds that passing the U.S. Citizenship Test as a high school graduation requirement does nothing to improve youth voter turnout. Within the last decade, more than a third of U.S.

Commentary
9.21.2023
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Public charter schools and the Chipotlification of education

Christy Wolfe

Before Chipotle ushered in the phenomenon of being able to “have it your way,” the customization of a fast casual meal was relegated to condiments, not the entire entree.

Commentary
9.18.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Excellence gaps: New resources and a personal history

Jonathan Plucker

The Fordham Institute’s new report, Excellence Gaps by Race and Socioeconomic Status, authored by Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner, is a significant addition to our growing knowledge about excellence gaps.

Commentary
9.14.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Back to the future: Houston takes a page from ed reform’s recent past

Dale Chu

When Texas education commissioner Mike Morath named Mike Miles as the superintendent of Houston ISD back in June, it represented a throwback of sorts to a more muscular period of school and district accountability.

Commentary
9.7.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

America’s recent education declines in international context

Michael J. Petrilli

America’s recent achievement declines are far from unique. Consider, for example, Chile, whose academic progress, as measured by international assessments, also stalled out in the early to mid-2010s, just like ours did. And which is also facing a teenage mental health crisis, much like we are, as well as rising violence and disorder in and around their campuses. Are these worldwide phenomena?

Commentary
9.7.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Grade inflation is not a victimless crime

Frederick M. Hess

Editor’s note: This was first published by Forbes.

Commentary
8.31.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education

The essential state role in educating advanced learners

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Getting advanced learners (a.k.a. “gifted” students) the education they need, and ensuring that this works equitably for youngsters from every sort of background, is substantially the responsibility of state leaders.

Commentary
8.31.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Texas’s controversial takeover of Houston’s schools

Daniel Buck

If you believe the media, it seems a dark lord has come to cut down the educational Eden that is the Houston Independent School District. He’s closing libraries to open detention centers.

Commentary
8.24.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How districts are gaming graduation rates by letting students cheat

Jeremy Noonan

For at least a decade, schools have been using online credit-recovery (OCR) courses to award bogus credits that satisfy graduation requirements, and thus inflating graduation rates.

Commentary
8.24.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Seven ways state leaders can rigorously implement the science of reading

Aaron Churchill

Ohio recently passed a historic state budget that includes, among other components, ambitious literacy reforms that require schools to follow the science of reading—an instructional approach that emphasizes phonics for building foundational lit

Commentary
8.24.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Long term outcomes of a home- and community-based literacy program

Jeff Murray

Future Forward began in Milwaukee in 2005 as SPARK—a small-scale, local effort to combine family engagement with intensive tutoring to help low-income elementary-age students improve their literacy skills. It has since expanded significantly, rebranded, and moved under the aegis of national nonprofit Education Analytics, Inc.

Commentary
8.17.2023
Curriculum & Instruction

Why AI hasn’t made coding skills obsolete

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

Many states now require high school students to learn coding before they can graduate, and a host of organizations encourage students to build coding skills. Is this all a waste of time and energy now that chatbots can code? In a word, no.

Commentary
8.17.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Stop using learning stations

Daniel Buck

Can we stop with the learning stations already? My teacher prep endorsed them. My first instructional coach trained me in them. Every school that I’ve ever worked at has incorporated them. Look them up on Teachers Pay Teachers and you’ll find scores of activities for various literacy stations, each one promising that they are proven effective.

Commentary
8.10.2023
Curriculum & Instruction

Hard lessons from a veteran homeschooler

Larissa Phillips

In the last three years, the families of 1.8 million children switched to homeschooling, bringing the nationwide total to 4.3 million in 2022. But glib calls for parents to join those ranks gloss over some persistent challenges inherent in homeschooling. Phillips discovered these challenges firsthand when her family moved to rural upstate New York and began homeschooling their kids.

Commentary
8.10.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Mike Schmoker’s achievable vision for education reform

Daniel Buck

I must admit, I’d become something of an education fatalist. I know the research about direct instruction. I know the power of a knowledge-rich, well-sequenced curriculum and the promise of school choice. I know that individual schools and even whole charter systems can achieve amazing results. But I always wonder: Is it all for naught?

Commentary
8.10.2023
Curriculum & Instruction

Learning by going: Springfield, Illinois

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

After a millennium or so in the world of ed policy, I nearly always think of education as stuff schools do that produces results on various metrics that (one hopes) enables education leaders and policymakers to make better decisions about what schools should do tomorrow.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards

Virginia leads the way on conservative education reform

Daniel Buck

Not since former Governor Scott Walker bludgeoned the unions in my home state of Wisconsin has there been such national outrage over state-level education policies. Historically, state-scale education has been a secondary affair, rarely topping the list of people’s substantive or political priorities, and most decisions have been left to local decision-making.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Mississippi didn’t cheat. Its reading gains are real.

Todd Collins

Is Mississippi a cheater? Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik seems sure of it. Last month, the Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion writer published a column saying that Mississippi’s widely acclaimed reading improvement was just a mirage.

Commentary
8.3.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Assessing the operations and impacts of Teach For America in Indianapolis

Jeff Murray

The Indianapolis branch of Teach For America (TFA Indy) was established in 2008, expanding the national organization’s mission—to build and deploy a corps of high-quality education leaders to support high-needs students—into the Hoosier State.

Commentary
7.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The college-going rate is down. Here’s hoping it falls even further.

Michael J. Petrilli

One of the biggest shifts in education in recent years has been a gradual move away from the “college for all” mantra, and hard numbers show a concurrent decline in the proportion of high school students matriculating directly to college. Far from something to deplore, this trend is a positive development—but only so long as the right teenagers are choosing to enter the labor market rather than pursue college.

Commentary
7.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

It’s time to dump Reading Recovery

Aaron Churchill

This month, Ohio joined a growing list of states and school systems that require schools to use high-quality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading, an approach to reading instruction that emphasizes

Commentary
7.20.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Building diverse college campuses starts in kindergarten

Michael J. Petrilli

Rather than wait until kids are leaving high school to try to even the playing field, we must start in kindergarten to identify the most academically talented students of all races and backgrounds and give them the support they need to excel.