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Commentary
8.19.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Short classroom interruptions add up to big time losses

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Perhaps it is only when we lose something that we realize its true value. A recent study by Matthew Kraft and Manuel Monti-Nussbaum finds that in-person teaching time in the classroom—now a precious commodity that many students and teachers won’t experience again for a while—was not properly safeguarded when we had it.

Commentary
8.19.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Most parents want to cancel school until the spring, finds a new Harris Poll study

Brandon L. Wright

A newly released study by The Harris Poll fielded during the first week of August finds that 57 percent of parents of school-age children “wish schools would just cancel this fall and re-open in the spring.” An even higher percentage of fathers—63 percent—say so.

Commentary
8.18.2020
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

The ACT and SAT don’t just measure learning. They drive it, too.

Travis Koutsoubos-Miles

Following numerous Covid-19-related testing cancellations, over 50 percent of four-year colleges and universities have, for fall 2021, gone “test-optional,” an admission policy providing the choice to applicants of whether to submit their ACT and SAT scores.

Commentary
8.18.2020
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

A test for the test: Moving the AP exams online

Jeffrey Olson, Trevor Packer

For more than sixty years, Advanced Placement exams have been an “in person” affair. AP exams have always been administered in schools with paper test booklets, then hand-graded at massive gatherings of teachers and college professors.

Commentary
8.18.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Shine a light on paths to postsecondary opportunity

Paige Kowalski, Ryan Reyna

Between learning loss from an interrupted spring semester and new pandemic-related financial struggles that families are facing, many students are canceling, delaying, or changing their plans to enroll in higher education.

Commentary
8.17.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

6 ways districts can deliver quality virtual instruction

Nik Osborne

The Covid-19 pandemic brought sudden and near total disruption to the K–12 system. Almost every single school in the country had to figure out how to serve students at home. Few succeeded.

Commentary
8.13.2020
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Covid-19 learning losses: Dark days lie ahead

Tom Coyne

In the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s latest report, I was shocked to read that, “less than a third of reviewed district reopening plans reference intervention strategies to help targeted students make up learning they may have lost during spring or summer.”

Commentary
8.12.2020
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Reopening decisions are mostly a matter of trust

Michael J. Petrilli

Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is that low-income communities and communities of color have been much harder hit by the virus than their more advantaged peers. But there’s likely something else: Many low-income and working-class parents simply don’t trust their kids’ schools to keep them safe.

Commentary
8.12.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Another indictment of America’s approach to reading instruction

Dale Chu

The tremor that you felt last week was the dropping of a new Emily Hanford radio documentary, “What the Words Say: Many kids struggle with reading—and children of color are far less likely to get the help they need.” Since she started reporting on reading several years ago, Hanford has kept up the pressure on the

Commentary
8.12.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Teacher unions vs. private schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The private schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live, are breathing a sigh of relief that, after much sturm und drang this past week, they’re back in charge of their own decisions about whether and how to re-open.

Commentary
8.12.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Schools’ responses to Covid-19 in spring 2020

Jeff Murray

Research on education during the coronavirus pandemic has been robust. Much of it is table setting for longer-term analysis on virtual curricula, teaching effectiveness, and student achievement. But there is also important ephemera being studied that will form a more immediate image of a difficult and chaotic time.

Commentary
8.11.2020
Governance

Kamala Harris and education reform

Dale Chu

Today, in what ended up being a somewhat anticlimactic announcement, Joe Biden tapped California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate. Back in May, I examined Harris’s views on education, along with other top prospects, and here’s what I had to say about hers:

Commentary
8.7.2020
Facilities, Teachers & School Leaders

Seven steps to design safe and healthy school drop-off and entry routines

Eric Tucker, Sarah Haga, Aaron Daly, Sarah Pactor

As we prepare to reopen our schools, school administrators must examine our back-to-school rituals and upgrade plans for re-entry to account for the challenges presented by Covid-19. In particular, schools must create and clearly communicate the processes for school drop-off and arrival that support social distancing and wellness measures.

Commentary
8.5.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Evidence that high school students can overcome disadvantage

Adam Tyner, Ph.D.

In the first chapter of their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that a distinctive feature of many modern, wealthy cultures is a broadened impulse to protect young people from difficulties.

Commentary
8.5.2020
Accountability & Testing

Mother of invention: Early evidence can inform new remote learning efforts

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Five years ago, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) launched an initiative called “Connected Education” in an effort to boost the number of students able to partake of Advanced Placement (AP) courses. More students meant more courses could be offered, but fiscal and personnel constraints prohibited them being offered in the traditional manner.

Commentary
8.5.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

What do school boards think about the 1619 Project curriculum?

Robert Pondiscio

A new survey of parents and school board members finds significant resistance, particularly among the latter group, to many of the controversial claims and ideas advanced by

Commentary
8.5.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Balancing learning loss against social and emotional harm

Victoria McDougald

Few parents are thrilled at the prospect of more distance learning in the fall, but a majority of adults worry that school reopening will worsen the pandemic. Parents and educators are also rightly concerned about children falling behind academically, as well as the social and emotional consequences of prolonged isolation from peers and other adults. For advice on how to balance all this, we turned to two school-system leaders, Juan Cabrera and Eva Moskowitz.

Commentary
8.3.2020
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Building a stronger, more equitable education system

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan

A massive amount of lost learning If ever there were a reminder that today’s young people are growing up with unprecedented challenges, it is the events of the past six months. With unfathomable speed, practically every aspect of our lives has been turned upside down.

Commentary
7.31.2020
Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Many students with the potential to excel in STEM fields struggle in school

Joni Lakin, Jonathan Wai

Students who have the kinds of talent scientists and engineers need to solve problems by visualizing how objects could be rotated, combined or changed in three dimensions often struggle at school.

Commentary
7.29.2020
Governance

How gerrymandering can hurt education

Trinady Maddock

2020 brings the decennial national census, and with that comes a whole host of challenges and changes brought on by the redistricting that follows—or as it’s sometimes known in its more questionable forms, gerrymandering.

Commentary
7.29.2020
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The cancellers come for charter schools

Robert Pondiscio

Almost exactly twenty years ago, in August 2000, CBS News’s 60 Minutes aired a segment about a pair of charter schools—one in the South Bronx; another in Houston, Texas—founded by a duo of twenty-something White male teachers. To see it now is to catch a time capsule glimpse of a more earnest and hopeful time.

Commentary
7.29.2020
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

School districts could try harder to reopen

Dale Chu

As coronavirus cases continue to rise, Colorado’s two largest school districts, Denver and Jeffco, recently announced their intention to start the school year remotely.

Commentary
7.29.2020
School Finance, Governance

With its next stimulus bill, Congress should return federal education aid to its roots

Michael J. Petrilli

Senate Republicans released their relief bill this week, the HEALS act, which proposes to steer the bulk of education aid to schools that open for in-person instruction. This is triggering angry reactions from most of the education establishment. Here's a less controversial and more constructive suggestion: Return federal education policy to its roots and require schools to provide “targeted assistance” to their disadvantaged, low-achieving students.

Commentary
7.27.2020
Facilities, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

No easy choices except to be kind (and butt out!)

Erika Sanzi

If we are to survive the stress and uncertainty of this year’s school reopenings, we are going to have to learn how to lead from a place of grace and empathy. None of this is easy. There are not any good, let alone perfect, options. The conditions on the ground are changing daily, and the personal circumstances of each family—whether teacher or student—are different.