Commentary
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: October 13, 2022
A Harvard economist finds that providing students financial incentives is a cost-effective way of improving academic outcomes.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance
Why urban charters outperform traditional public schools
High-quality studies continue to find that urban charter schools boost achievement and other outcomes by more than their traditional-public-school peers—an advantage that has only grown larger as the charter sector has expanded and matured. Where the research literature is less clear is why urban charter schools consistently, and increasingly, outperform district schools. Still, it does offer some hints and plausible hypotheses.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
High-achieving middle and high schoolers gain from latest NYC ed reform
Amid nonstop controversy, New York City, which runs the nation’s largest school system, is again moving in the right direction when it comes to advancing the education of able students and opening opportunities to more high achievers. This after much retrograde activity during the regime of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Instructional time lost to Covid will likely mean persistent and widening gaps in literacy
An analysis in the New York Times last month cheerily assured readers that Covid-related learning losses “look real but sub-catastrophic.” The damage also appears “to not be permanent, with students recovering at least some ground already,” opined David Wallace-Wells, a columnist for the NYT Magazi
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Doug Lemov’s vision for fostering meaning, purpose, and belonging in our classrooms
For teachers, especially newer ones, Doug Lemov’s work acts as something of a life-saving manual.
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: October 6, 2022
A Georgia teachers union has endorsed the Republican incumbent for state superintendent because his Democratic challenger supports school choice.
Commentary
Governance
A big, rambunctious conservative education agenda is a feature, not a bug
Last week, our friend Checker Finn published a dual review of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s “Commitment to America” and our recently published AEI volume
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Should schools group students by ability?
One of the most contentious debates in American education focuses on whether to group students into classrooms using some measure of prior achievement.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Judge “for-profit” charter schools on their results, not the tax status of their main vendor
After a tumultuous reception, the Biden administration’s regulations for the federal
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
America’s education crisis as a national security threat
Since the end of World War II, the world’s population has not only gotten vastly bigger; it has also become vastly more educated. In nearly every country, the total number of years that citizens have attended school has grown faster than the population itself, and the number of college degrees conferred has grown even faster.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
California backtracks on withholding testing data
Weeks away from the midterms, education apparatchiks in the nation’s most populous state are ramping up the election mischief by playing politics with what are expected to be dismal results from assessments taken by students last spring.
Commentary
Governance
Conservatives’ disjointed education-reform agenda
Do today’s conservatives have an education-reform agenda worth paying attention to? Anything coherent? Anything beyond school choice and lots of it? Anything other than “fie on CRT and let’s not say gay, at least not in grade school.” Two efforts to answer those questions have popped up on my screen and desk in the past ten days. Neither quite does the job.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Accelerating math achievement through customized practice
For years, millions of U.S. students have taken the NWEA MAP Growth assessment. Data from these computer-adaptive assessments—which cover math, reading, language usage, and science—can help teachers determine which students need remediation or other supports and in which topic areas.
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: September 29, 2022
Refugees from Ukraine are enrolling in Polish schools, where “schools and citizens are stretching resources to help them adjust.” —Wall Street Journal A new study suggests that students taught by Black and White graduates of historically Black colleges and u
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Credentials matter, but pathways matter more
Credentials matter, but maybe not as much as many hope. That seems to be one of the takeaways from Fordham’s latest report by Matt Giani evaluating high school industry recognized credential (IRC) attainment and learner outcomes in Texas.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Charter school achievement in D.C. was decimated by the pandemic. Here’s what we can learn from that.
Nine percent. That’s how many Black boys met expectations in math in D.C.’s traditional public schools in 2022, down from 17 percent before the pandemic. It’s also how many met those expectation in the city’s charter schools, down from 22 percent. The word “disaster” is used a lot lately, but it is absolutely the right fit here. There are, however, lessons we can learn from this catastrophe.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
A pandemic back-to-school reminder: Friendships count
The school and college lockdowns that came with the pandemic brought formal education’s friend-making and relationship-sustaining roles front and center in a way few could have imagined. School-based friendships and other personal relationships—a form of social capital—help prepare young people to pursue opportunity and human flourishing.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
High-quality schooling is a necessary component of economic growth, according to 60 years of international test data
International student assessments are commonplace today, though none existed before 1965, and few countries participated at the outset.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Which factors best predict classroom placements of students with disabilities?
A recent study from the Journal of Learning Disabilities sheds light on the vitally important question of which students with disabilities (SWDs) are placed primarily outside of general education classrooms. Specifically, analysts seek to document the level of racial or ethnic disparities in placement and whether those disparities are explained by bias or other factors.
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Commentary
What we're reading this week: September 22, 2022
Almost one-third of American workers with a teaching degree were employed outside of the education field in 2020. —Washington Post Donda Academy, a K–12 private school founded by Kanye West and named in honor of his late mother, opens in California.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Industry-recognized credentials can be very transformational, depending on the local context
A new Fordham Institute report authored by University of Texas professor Matt Giani finds that industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) are “mostly not transformative” for the high school students who earn them. But the truth is that it’s all about the context.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Supporting student wellness through challenging academic learning
The pandemic accelerated a mental health crisis for children and teens that was already apparent prior to spring 2020. It is a serious issue, and schools have expanded mental health services to meet the needs of a greater number of struggling students. At the same time, as we commence a school year in which educators must continue the intensive work of repairing the pandemic’s academic damage, focusing on student emotional wellness does not require relinquishing academic learning.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Wanted: A Science of Reading Comprehension movement
Just in the nick of time for the last days of summer beach reading, there were a pair of big stories about reading instruction in TIME magazine and The New Yorker last month.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A teacher’s-eye view of the culture of a “No Excuses” school
Whether or not the bipartisan education consensus is dead, one of its most visible and effective reforms lives on: so-called “No Excuses” model schools, institutions famous for their exacting behavioral and academic standards.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Multiple positive outcomes for CTE students
As money and attention focus on career and technical education (CTE) at ever greater levels, researchers can help gauge program effectiveness by digging into the data.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Four-day school weeks: Is the trade-off worth it?
Four-day school weeks saw a sharp increase in popularity between 1999 and 2019, then the pandemic added impetus to the already growing trend—with districts seeing shortened school weeks as a way to retain teachers and cut expenses.
