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Education 20/20: Ian Rowe and Michael Barone

The Education 20/20 speaker series resumes on December 11th with another all-star double-header. Ian Rowe will lead off by arguing for the inclusion of family structure in measures of student achievement. Then Michael Barone will explore the educational travails—past, present, and future—of gifted students and what might be done to ease the pain.

Education 20/20: Kay Hymowitz and Nicholas Eberstadt

For part two of our Education 20/20 speaker series on the purpose of K-12 education, we’re joined by Kay Hymowitz and Nicholas Eberstadt as they discuss parenting, soft skills, the decline of male labor participation, and what schools can (and can’t) do about it.

Education 20/20: Naomi Schaefer Riley and Jonah Goldberg

Our Education 20/20 speaker series continues with a double-header event. First up, Naomi Schaefer Riley discusses the limits of school choice. Then Jonah Goldberg argues that civics education need to reclaim the ideals of American democracy.

Inflated Grades: What Happens When Report Cards Lie

Join the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on November 8, as we present the findings of Fordham’s latest study, Grade Inflation in North Carolina’s High Schools, and a panel of experts discusses the causes and consequences of inflated grades and possible policy solutions

Education 20/20: "Double Standards on Discipline Will Widen the Racial Divide"

Join us on Thursday, September 27th, when Heather MacDonald, author of The Diversity Delusion, kicks off the series with her perspective on race-based discipline reform, including why it hurts the children it purports to help and how it cuts against one of the core purposes of schooling.

Can Charter Schools Survive Polarization and Populism?

Charter schools have historically garnered support from across the political spectrum, but President Trump and Secretary of Education DeVos—by their very support—may be narrowing that broad base. Last year’s Education Next poll found a steep drop in charter support among Democrats.

America’s Charter School Deserts: Up Close in the Washington Metro Area

2016–17 was one of the slowest growth years for charter schools in recent memory.

Three Hoover Fellows on NAEP, A Nation at Risk, and the Future of Education Reform

This month, the U.S. Department of Education released the latest results of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), which told us how fourth- and eighth-grade students are faring nationally, in every state, and in most big cities in math and reading. This month also marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of A Nation at Risk.

School Discipline Reform: Hard Lessons from the Front Lines

In recent years, the school discipline pendulum has swung wildly, as policymakers, opinion-shapers, and interest groups have struggled over an inherently difficult problem. Today, the “zero tolerance” policies that were popular at the end of the last century are widely viewed as unfair, heavy-handed, even discriminatory.

David Driscoll and the “Massachusetts Miracle” Commitment and Commonsense in the Commonwealth

Massachusetts produces the best educational outcomes in the country. Its reading and math scores have long topped the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It’s the only U.S. state that competes with the planet’s strongest-achieving countries on international tests. And it’s the first U.S. state in which a majority of the workforce holds a four-year degree.

Millennials in Ed Reform

The preferences, opinions, and predilections of millennials have already reshaped American office culture, news consumption, and taxi-hailing. But what (if anything) do their opinions portend for education and ed reform?

The ESSA Achievement Challenge

Now that states have submitted their ESSA plans and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos begins to issue her stamp of approval, what happens next? It's time to put these plans into action; which states are most likely to see significant achievement gains in the coming years?

The Challenges of High School Choice—and How to Overcome Them

What are the pitfalls to the typical comprehensive high school that high schools of choice can better remedy?

Can We Bridge the Research-to-Policy Divide?

More than Overdue: Special Ed 2.0 - A conversation with Miriam Kurtzig Freedman

See the attached PDF for an unedited transcript of the event.   What if every child in American schools had the equivalent of an IEP, i.e. we customized the education of every unique student?

A $20 Billion School Choice Tax Credit Program: Yes, No, Maybe, How So?

Since Donald Trump’s election and Betsy DeVos’s selection as Secretary of Education put private-school-choice programs in the national spotlight—after years of steady growth at the state level—advocates across Twitter and the blogosphere have been offering ideas on what a big push at the federal level might look like.

The Excellence Gap: The State of Gifted & Talented Education

Turnaround Districts: Lessons from Louisiana, Tennessee, and Michigan

So-called “turnaround school districts,” inspired by Louisiana’s Recovery School District and its near-clone in Tennessee, have been gathering steam, with policymakers calling for them in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and other states scattered from coast to coast.

Traversing the Teacher-Evaluation Terrain

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Common Core & Curriculum Controversies

Does three times four equal eleven? Will “fuzzy math” leave our students two years behind other countries? Will literature vanish from the English class? Is gifted-and-talented education dying? A barrel of rumors and myths about curriculum has made its way into discussions of the Common Core State Standards for math and English language arts.

School Choice: From Theory to Action

For over twenty years, scholars Paul Hill and Paul Peterson have been at the forefront of the effort to bring greater educational options to America?s neediest students. Please join the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and t