Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: August 15, 2024
“Shifting NYC school demographics: There are nearly as many Asian American as Black students.” —Chalkbeat Free meals for all children, longer-than-average Covid closures, and a focus on gender and racial equality: Did Tim Walz
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Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance
Modeling the impacts over time of education funding changes in Mississippi
The specific connection between increased school funding and student outcomes remains unclear—regardless of whether the added dollars are blanket or targeted—and the
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: August 8, 2024
Students and colleagues of former public school teacher and current Governor Tim Walz speak highly of his skill and charm. Could he be just as popular as Vice President Harris’s running mate?
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Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Is racial mismatch in the classroom fixable?
Despite the growing diversity of American students, the teaching workforce remains disproportionately White. A recent study uses twelve years of administrative data from Maryland to examine the factors contributing to the state's chronic shortage of Black teachers.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A reform agenda for Montgomery County Public Schools, part one
As regular readers know, I’m a parent of two children enrolled in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS).
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Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities, Governance
Stop playing the race card on school closures
Everyone who cares about racial justice should be focused on doing what’s best for students and their learning—not on school buildings or the employment impact of closing some of them.
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Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The case for standardized testing
By now, we’re well familiar with critiques of standardized testing opponents: tests rob schools of critical instructional time, encourage teaching to the test, place undue pressure on students and educators to perform, are educationally irrelevant, only provide a snapshot of student achievement at a specific moment in time, and are largely driven by family income levels, parents’ education, and
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Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
Why college grads’ struggle to find jobs could be a boon for schools
According to a Goldman Sachs analysis of federal data, the college graduating class of 2024 is having a tough time finding attractive jobs.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Have bloated pandemic-era grades now stabilized?
School closures and remote learning led to widespread relaxation of student accountability at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Lax requirements to turn in work, fewer graded assignments, and—most perniciously—policies mandating “no zeros” or “no failing grades” were adopted (or accelerated) to lighten the load of young people whose worlds had been turned upside down.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: August 1, 2024
A new study on emergency teacher licensure concludes that formal training does indeed matter. —Heather Peske, NCTQ Governor Josh Shapiro’s potential as Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick has placed his uneven support for school choice under scrutiny from both left and right.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
“Everything, everywhere, all at once” solutions to chronic absenteeism
Read the winning entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Who gets attendance interventions is as important as what the intervention is
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Let’s stop blaming kids for absenteeism and unleash entrepreneurship
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Sustainable, promising interventions to reduce chronic absenteeism
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Improving school attendance in Rhode Island
Editor’s note: This essay won third place in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
To fix chronic absenteeism, we must ask why kids don’t want to go to school
Editor’s note: This essay won second place in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education
Are AP exams getting easier?
Three decades ago, the College Board “recentered” the SAT. Now it’s “recalibrating” Advanced Placement. Though both adjustments in these enormously influential testing programs can be justified by psychometricians, both are also probable examples of what the late Senator Daniel P.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
Change our schooling paradigm to reduce chronic absenteeism
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Standards, Teachers & School Leaders
Civics for today
This essay focuses on A Republic, If We Can Teach It: Fixing America’s Civic Education Crisis, a new book by Jeffrey Sikkenga and Hoover research fellow (emeritus) David Davenport.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How can policymakers and practitioners reduce chronic absenteeism? The answer is sports.
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Schools cannot radically reduce chronic absenteeism alone
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2024 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “How can policymakers and practitioners radically reduce chronic absenteeism—at least below pre-pandemic levels and preferably much further?”
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How to implement a cellphone ban in schools
About seven in ten (72 percent) high school teachers say that students being distracted by cellphones is a major problem in their classroom.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
California schools are failing to teach kids how to read
Everyone benefits from exemplars. We all need models to mimic and follow. In the policy realm that means states, legislatures and governors who pass policies and reforms that materially improve the lives of their residents.
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Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Is “credit recovery” as bad as they say?
For several years now, critics have been blaring klaxons about the questionable quality and increasing
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Digging into the 2024 survey of American public school teachers
Teacher voice is often missing from education policy discussions, leading to what can feel like an adversarial relationship between pundits and practitioners. Educators for Excellence (E4E) strives to reframe that relationship by amplifying the interests and concerns of teachers across the land.
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: July 25, 2024
The media coverage of Project 2025, which on education is little more than a wish list of standard conservative policy, has trafficked many falsehoods.
