Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Defunding the teacher trainers
Earlier this month, the U.S.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
Did the most well-known and influential study in K–12 education get it wrong?
Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio) is a widely-known experiment comparing class-size reduction and student achievement outcomes, conducted in the 1980s in Tennessee.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Facilities
How school HVAC systems affect learning
When we talk about achievement and discipline gaps in education, we customarily focus on teaching quality, school funding, and student behavior. But what if some of these disparities have less to do with what teachers or students are doing and more to do with something as basic as air conditioning?
Commentary
Commentary
Podcast
Accountability & Testing
#959: Are GPAs the key to measuring school quality? with Jing Liu and Seth Gershenson
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Jing
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
There is proof that knowledge works. And it’s overwhelming.
Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report, one of the better education journalists working today, recently raised concerns about the empirical support for knowledge-rich curricula in improving reading comprehension. But the issue is not a lack of compelling evidence—there is prodigious evidence—but rather the difficulty of isolating long-term curricular effects in research.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Open enrollment deserves bipartisan support
In recent years, school choice has made impressive strides. Eleven states have codified universal or near-universal private school choice programs.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Hard lessons from the NAEP results
Scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released on January 29. How were they?
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction
Examining a new method of estimating homeschool participation
A valuable recent edition of the Journal of School Choice focused entirely on research around homeschooling, aiming to add useful data and rigorous analysis to this little-studied education sector.
Commentary
Commentary
What we’re reading this week: February 27, 2025
Math instruction deserves the same scrutiny as reading—but the absence of a single, widely discredited teaching method make it harder to drive widespread reform.
Podcast
#958: Louisiana’s NAEP gains and the power of a strong curriculum, with John White
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, John White, former Louis
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Make room, test scores: Introducing “indicators of high school and middle school readiness”
Our latest study pilots a new measure of a school’s quality: its contribution to students’ grade point averages at their next school. It sends a clear message to educators that one of their core missions is to help their graduates succeed in their next step—not just in reading and math, but in all subjects—and not just on tests, but on the stuff that tests struggle to capture.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Mind the honesty gap
A new report from the Collaborative for Student Success aims to refocus attention on the “honesty gap” in the wake of the latest (and disastrous) NAEP results.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A bold state move to improve reading
When I started teaching in Louisiana in 2004, I was told that the state was expanding annual assessments of students to all grades 3–8 because Louisiana ranked forty-ninth in the country for reading proficiency. I started to hear a gutting phrase that I’ve since learned is common across the southeast, “the only state behind us is Mississippi. Thank goodness for Mississippi.”
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The state of pandemic learning loss recovery
The third iteration of the Education Recovery Scorecard, compiled by Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research, was released hot on the heels of 2024 NAEP test scores and is an
Commentary
Commentary
What we’re reading this week: February 20, 2025
“The bad new bipartisan consensus behind falling test scores.” —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring A Massachusetts high school’s partnership with a trade union provides students with hands-on experience and pathways to union apprenticeships, addressing the skilled labor shortage while promoting inclusivity
Report
Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality
Everyone knows that standardized tests paint an incomplete picture of schools’ impacts on students. Yet the search for alternative indicators of school quality has been a disappointment. Might a new measure based on students' GPA's hold promise?
Podcast
Governance
#957: DOGE, IES, and the future of education research
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike and David discuss what’s really going on with DOG
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Teachers & School Leaders
3 ways charter schools can help fix U.S. learning loss
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
The impact of advanced education on underprivileged boys
The gender gap in education is less talked about than many other achievement gaps, but it persists.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Teachers & School Leaders
Can a bonus payment help fill special education teacher positions? Evidence from Hawaii.
While some aspects of the putative
Commentary
What we’re reading this week: February 13, 2025
Trump’s crusade against DEI aims to restore meritocracy—but to do so, he must also address disparate-impact theory, which prohibits “neutral” practices that disproportionately impact specific groups (e.g., testing requirements that disqualify black applicants at higher rates), but often ends up harming the groups it intends to protect.
Commentary
Podcast
Governance
#956: How schools can manage deportation fears, with Delia Pompa
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Delia Pompa, Senior Fellow for Education P
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
Easy, DOGE. IES matters.
If DOGE actually sought the “government efficiency” in its name, it could help modernize the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. But slashing and burning, as happened the other day, won’t improve matters. It’s just going to weaken the foremost truth squad in American education, the chief sponsor and funder of rigorous analysis, reliable data, and clear-eyed evaluations in a realm that needs more of those things, not less.
Commentary
Governance
Culture war vs. competence: Why conservatives should support Penny Schwinn
Conservative criticism of Penny Schwinn’s nomination as Deputy Secretary of Education has so far focused on her bona fides in fighting “culture wars” in schools. But other important elements are at stake right now. Specifically, prioritizing competence and effectiveness in teachers, administrators, and leaders. Our students deserve no less. Schwinn’s nomination is an opportunity to refocus on what truly matters.
Commentary
Private School Choice
School choice programs: Testing mandates are more common than you think
Opponents make lots of arguments against education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarship programs, and other forms of private school choice. But the complaint that schools aren’t required to test their students is generally false. We dig in and set the record straight
