Displaying 1-30 of 16972 results
U.S. Department of Education building
Commentary
3.12.2025
Governance

11 thoughts about the massive layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education

Michael J. Petrilli

Trump administration officials announced on Tuesday that they are laying off 1,300 employees at the U.S. Department of Education. This is on top of nearly 600 people who had already taken early retirement or buyouts, as well as another 60 probationary employees who had already been fired. This brings the agency’s headcount down from about 4,100 to about 2,200, a major reduction. Here are some thoughts on the situation as we understand it now.

U.S. Department of Education building
Giving money
Commentary
3.12.2025
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Should schools pay students to attend remediation programs?

Alina Adams

When my middle child was in high school, nothing I said or did could keep him from dropping out. But what if I’d tried paying him?

Giving money
Bridge construction and gap
Commentary
3.12.2025
Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders

The return of accountability

Tim Daly

During a January 29 town hall in Washington to discuss dismal new test results, Harvard professor Marty West—who serves as the vice chair of the board that oversees na

Bridge construction and gap
Student working in a library
Commentary
3.12.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Barriers to teaching and assessing “soft skills”

Heena Kuwayama

Academic skills alone are not enough for students to find success later in life, whether in their career specifically or in their broader participation in s

Student working in a library
Piggy bank and chalkboard
Commentary
3.6.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Defunding the teacher trainers

Frederick M. Hess

Earlier this month, the U.S.

Piggy bank and chalkboard
School air conditioner
Commentary
3.6.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities

How school HVAC systems affect learning

Ali Schalop

When we talk about achievement and discipline gaps in education, we customarily focus on teaching quality, school funding, and student behavior. But what if some of these disparities have less to do with what teachers or students are doing and more to do with something as basic as air conditioning?

School air conditioner
Students raising their hands in a school classroom
Commentary
2.27.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

There is proof that knowledge works. And it’s overwhelming.

Robert Pondiscio

Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report, one of the better education journalists working today, recently raised concerns about the empirical support for knowledge-rich curricula in improving reading comprehension. But the issue is not a lack of compelling evidence—there is prodigious evidence—but rather the difficulty of isolating long-term curricular effects in research.

Students raising their hands in a school classroom
Student entering a school
Commentary
2.27.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Open enrollment deserves bipartisan support

Jude Schwalbach

In recent years, school choice has made impressive strides. Eleven states have codified universal or near-universal private school choice programs.

Student entering a school
Scantron
Commentary
2.27.2025
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Hard lessons from the NAEP results

Tim Daly

Scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released on January 29. How were they?

Scantron
Homeschooling
Commentary
2.27.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction

Examining a new method of estimating homeschool participation

Jeff Murray

A valuable recent edition of the Journal of School Choice focused entirely on research around homeschooling, aiming to add useful data and rigorous analysis to this little-studied education sector.

Homeschooling
Fordham Gadfly image
Commentary
2.27.2025

What we’re reading this week: February 27, 2025

The Education Gadfly

Math instruction deserves the same scrutiny as reading—but the absence of a single, widely discredited teaching method make it harder to drive widespread reform.

Fordham Gadfly image
Students
Commentary
2.20.2025
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Make room, test scores: Introducing “indicators of high school and middle school readiness”

David Griffith, Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Our latest study pilots a new measure of a school’s quality: its contribution to students’ grade point averages at their next school. It sends a clear message to educators that one of their core missions is to help their graduates succeed in their next step—not just in reading and math, but in all subjects—and not just on tests, but on the stuff that tests struggle to capture.

Students
Subway platform
Commentary
2.20.2025
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Mind the honesty gap

Dale Chu

A new report from the Collaborative for Student Success aims to refocus attention on the “honesty gap” in the wake of the latest (and disastrous) NAEP results.

Subway platform
Welcome to Mississippi
Commentary
2.20.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

A bold state move to improve reading

Emily Freitag

When I started teaching in Louisiana in 2004, I was told that the state was expanding annual assessments of students to all grades 3–8 because Louisiana ranked forty-ninth in the country for reading proficiency. I started to hear a gutting phrase that I’ve since learned is common across the southeast, “the only state behind us is Mississippi. Thank goodness for Mississippi.”

Welcome to Mississippi
School building
Commentary
2.20.2025
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The state of pandemic learning loss recovery

Jeff Murray

The third iteration of the Education Recovery Scorecard, compiled by Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research, was released hot on the heels of 2024 NAEP test scores and is an

School building
Fordham Gadfly image
Commentary
2.20.2025

What we’re reading this week: February 20, 2025

The Education Gadfly

“The bad new bipartisan consensus behind falling test scores.” —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring A Massachusetts high school’s partnership with a trade union provides students with hands-on experience and pathways to union apprenticeships, addressing the skilled labor shortage while promoting inclusivity

Fordham Gadfly image
Student doing math in a classroom
Commentary
2.13.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

The impact of advanced education on underprivileged boys

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

The gender gap in education is less talked about than many other achievement gaps, but it persists.

Student doing math in a classroom
Fordham Gadfly image
Commentary
2.13.2025

What we’re reading this week: February 13, 2025

The Education Gadfly

Trump’s crusade against DEI aims to restore meritocracy—but to do so, he must also address disparate-impact theory, which prohibits “neutral” practices that disproportionately impact specific groups (e.g., testing requirements that disqualify black applicants at higher rates), but often ends up harming the groups it intends to protect.

Fordham Gadfly image