Commentary
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.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
To boost attendance and outcomes, pay students, not systems
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
To improve attendance, promote autonomy
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, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How Kamala Harris can move to the center on education
It may be true that Kamala Harris is, at heart, your typical progressive Democrat from California. But she has an unusual opportunity to shed some of that political baggage. Indicating that she will be open to education reform is one of the best ways to do so.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Rethinking school policies to combat 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
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Do testing and accountability improve student learning?
In a word, yes! It’s never enough, and there’s no resting on laurels, but we have solid evidence over thirty years in America and beyond that students learn more when they—and their schools—are held to account for what and how well they’re learning.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Advanced education programs are important to parents, poll finds
Academic advancement programs (especially those branded as “gifted and talented”) are often at the center of controversy about equity in education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities, Governance
The case for closing underenrolled, low-performing schools
The conventional wisdom is that school closures are bad—not the temporary pandemic-era variety, but the permanent shuttering of underenrolled school facilities.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice
Vance vs. Pence: How Trump’s VP picks compare on education
On Monday, Donald Trump chose Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, signaling a doubling down on his MAGA brand. As far as education is concerned, this means tapping into broad parental discontent over educational and education-related issues, many of which were turbocharged by the pandemic.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Five ways to ensure that charter schools have a political future
Perhaps no modern American education reform has enjoyed the success and staying power of charter schools. Three-plus decades after Minnesota passed the first charter law, 3.7 million students now attend charters, the majority of whom are children of color and come from low-income families.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The “science of reading” is on a winning streak—and that’s a problem
Spend any length of time in education and you can’t help notice pendulum swings as ideas about what constitutes effective practice fall in and out of fashion. There’s no reason to expect the “science of reading” movement to be an exception.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
Can higher student-tutor ratios make tutoring more affordable without sacrificing effectiveness?
As policymakers grapple with pandemic-induced learning loss across the country, intensive tutoring has emerged as a promising solution.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: July 18, 2024
The overturning of Chevron deference, which placed a high level of trust in federal agencies to interpret ambiguous statutes, could mean sweeping changes in education in the short term alongside more stability long term.
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Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
The Great Recalibration of AP exams
The Advanced Placement program is undergoing a radical transformation. Over the last three years, the College Board has “recalibrated” nine of its most popular AP Exams so that approximately 500,000 more AP Exams will earn a 3+ score this year than they would have without recalibration.
Commentary
Facilities, Governance
Republican governors need to step up on school closures
Red-state governors like Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, and Greg Abbott deserve credit for taking the political risk to reopen schools quickly during the pandemic, over the objections of officials in Democratic cities. They decided that education was too important to leave to the left. Now the country faces a different wave of school closings, and conservative governors must step up again.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Where do teachers unions stand on student discipline?
Long after Covid-inspired shutdowns, schools remain chaotic according to recent surveys and umpteen stories of hallway brawls, bus fights, and general mayhem.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What’s wrong with boys in school?
In my final college semester, I had the privilege of being a full-time student teacher at a Catholic middle school, teaching seventh and eigth grade history and theology. It was the highlight of my life. The students were curious, polite, and thoughtful, caring to one another and welcoming to me.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Why are policies that push algebra in eighth grade successful?
Between 1990 and 2013, the share of students nationally who enrolled in algebra or a similar advanced math course in eighth grade more than doubled to 46 percent. Since 2013, however, the trend has reversed, with just 36 percent of eighth graders enrolled in algebra as of 2022.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
How does teacher experience impact student absenteeism in early elementary school?
In the 2022–23 school year, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were chronically absent—a rate almost 10 percentage points higher than pre-pandemic.
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: July 11, 2024
With new curriculum, instructional approaches, and staffing models, Houston’s Mike Miles is implementing the most significant overhaul of a public-school system in modern history.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Saving our best teachers: The urgency of retention amid layoffs
The teaching profession may be in for a rough year ahead, but even without the looming layoffs as federal emergency funds come to an end, school districts are not focusing enough on keeping their best talent. And teachers themselves seem bearish on their profession.
Commentary
School Finance, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
Public funding for religious schools can help ease our culture wars
Knee-jerk reaction against public subsidies for religious education is unwise. That’s because allowing religious families to choose sectarian schools for their children could very well be a saving grace for our society. And you don’t have to be among the faithful to believe so.
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Charter Schools, Governance
Charter schools can’t afford to lose Republican support
Charter schools are in for a slog. It doesn’t matter who wins in November. Joe Biden is not a fan.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
When to choose inquiry-based learning over direct instruction in STEM
Inquiry-based learning in STEM classrooms, long a contentious topic, has been making news since the introduction of the controversial California Math Framework. This student-led approach aims to foster engagement by sparking curiosity and critical thinking.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Assessing the federal Striving Readers grant program
Starting in 2010, Congress invested more than $1 billion to assist states with their literacy improvement efforts through the Striving Rea
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: July 4, 2024
Seventeen states have mandated financial literacy courses since 2020, bring the total up to twenty-five. —The Economist School choice policies are proving controversial in conservative, rural communities.
