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School paper grade
Commentary
9.28.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

It’s not AI vs. human grading. It’s which design choices you make.

Sidhi Baweja

During my school years, I was often called a student who “could do better.” I took feedback seriously and tried to act on it. But one teacher had already made up his mind about me. He thought I was lazy and naughty. There was a reason for it, but somehow that single incident became my identity, and it showed up in my grades. I kept wondering how to get out of his bad books. I never did.

School paper grade
Teacher and student with a laptop
Commentary
9.28.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Bans aren’t the answer

Emily Freitag

I have heard a number of leaders start discussions about AI with the question, “Are you for or against AI?”

Teacher and student with a laptop
Empty classroom
Commentary
9.24.2026
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Teach For America was once a movement. What happened?

Dale Chu

This year, Teach For America marks its 35th anniversary. Few organizations have shaped education reform so profoundly. It produced not only achievement gains among students, but also an elite talent pipeline of TFA alumni. In recent years, however, those laudable outcomes have receded as the organization shifted its mission into more ideological terrain. Recent trends present an opportunity for Teach For America to rediscover what once made it so effective.

Empty classroom
Contract signing
Commentary
9.24.2026
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance

How long should charter school contract terms be?

Jeff Murray

A defining feature of charter schools is the oversight structure provided by the authorizer. It is an authorizer’s job to determine whether schools are fulfilling the terms of their charters across numerous areas, not least of which is student outcomes.

Contract signing
Slow road sign
Commentary
9.22.2026
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How states can slow the staffing surge

Aaron Garth Smith

Public school funding is at record levels, but not enough money is making its way to teacher paychecks.

Slow road sign
U-turn
Commentary
9.18.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We’ve been treating college as a career plan, but it’s failing too many students

Patrick O’Donnell

In one of Denver’s wealthiest suburbs, where median family income tops $150,000 and nearly every kid is expected to go to college, students are now lining up for trade certifications. Their parents aren’t worried; in fact, most of them are championing the move.

U-turn
Fork in the road
Commentary
9.17.2026
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

College or career? On false positives and negatives

Matthew Carr

The backlash against “college for all” was overdue, but policymakers shouldn’t replace one flawed approach with another. Academic performance in high school can predict whether students will succeed in college, but it cannot tell us whether college—or another pathway—will leave a particular student better off. Better advising can help teenagers weigh each route’s tradeoffs.

Fork in the road
C grade on a chalkboard
Commentary
9.17.2026
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance

What state standards look like on the NAEP scale

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) regularly publishes reports using results from NAEP testing to compare the proficiency standards that states set for their students.

C grade on a chalkboard
Clock and money jar
Commentary
9.17.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How money and time shape children’s early advantages

Kendall Rogers

The importance of childhood investments to the trajectory of life is commonly accepted, but less is known about the size and sources of disparities in these investments.

Clock and money jar
9/11 Memorial
Commentary
9.11.2026
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The strange education legacy of 9/11

Dale Chu

The strange education legacy of 9/11 was, in many ways, an accident of history. The attacks helped propel an ambitious national education agenda into law, even as the political coalition behind it eventually unraveled. Twenty-five years later, the pandemic revealed just how far the country had moved from the consensus that once united reformers.

9/11 Memorial
Alpha School
Commentary
9.11.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Alpha School’s Theranos problem

Van Schoales

I was recently walking around Austin, Texas. And a block from the new W Hotel, I passed Alpha School, housed in what looked like a tech office. Outside was a sign reading “Kids crush academics in two hours, build life skills, and thrive,” under a big photo of the founder.

Alpha School
Students on computers
Commentary
9.10.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Screens, AI, and grade inflation are hollowing out the American high school experience

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. Petrilli

High school students report widespread screen distraction, AI misuse, and grading practices that make it easier to earn high marks without mastering the relevant material. A new Fordham survey suggests that we will only solve these problems by restoring the basic conditions for learning: attention, effort, honest work, and adults willing to hold adolescents to high expectations.

Students on computers
Graduate
Commentary
9.10.2026
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What Massachusetts’s portrait of a learner gets right (and New York’s doesn’t)

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

When I taught high school in Virginia in the early 2020s, I was only vaguely aware of the existence of something called “portrait of a graduate.” Whatever this portrait was, it didn’t seem to impact my daily work, so it didn’t capture my attention. On the other hand, I knew my IB courses and our state assessments backward and forward. Those shaped what we did in the classroom.

Graduate
School backpack
Commentary
9.10.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Is this the post-homework era?

Alicia Anderson

In Fordham’s new survey of American high school students and recent graduates, less than half believe their school has realistic AI policies that keep up with the times.

School backpack
Empty school desk
Commentary
9.10.2026
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Fewer students, more dollars, and harder choices

Mike McShane

At the beginning of the movie The Big Short, there is a title card with the epigram, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” It attributes the quote to Mark Twain. Ironically, there isn’t any proof that Twain actually said or wrote that.

Empty school desk