The best educational apps for teaching history, science, and other content to young children

The Apple App Store and Google Play are chocked-full of educational apps for your kids, some excellent and some schlock. Separating the wheat from the chaff is no small task; thankfully Graphite (a spin-off from Common Sense Media) does an excellent job highlighting and reviewing the better ones.

Improving opportunities for African American students

Clear-eyed about the challenges. Constructive and hopeful about workable solutions. Robert Pondiscio

NCTQ's annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook

In most states, a surprising amount of progress in a short amount of time. Robert Pondiscio

A grand Washington accomplishment

ESSA’s presidential signature, the opt-out movement’s rural footprint, the economic benefit of NAEP proficiency, and TFA’s second-generation teachers.

Poverty cannot explain America's mediocre test scores

That excuse turns out to be a crutch that’s unsupported by the evidence. Michael J. Petrilli and Brandon L. Wright

How to solve Scalia's race problem

There is a fast track in American education. And we’re getting far too few African American students onto it. By Brandon L. Wright and Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Governor Cuomo's task force looks to bury higher standards

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. But if you’re pressed for time and want to end all intelligent life quickly, nothing beats a task force.

On the Road to Better Accessibility, Autonomy, and Accountability: State Policy Analysis 2015

Rankings against policy recommendations

All children deserve safe schools

Here at Fordham, you can usually find us gleefully dinging New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on his education policies. When he was first pushing his universal pre-K initiative a few years back, we argued that he should have tailored the program more narrowly to the kids who needed it most.

What I saw at Success Academies

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of visiting Success Academy Harlem 1 and hearing from Eva Moskowitz and the SA staff about their model. I’m not going to venture into the thorny stuff about SA here. What I will say is that their results on state tests are clearly impressive, and I doubt that they’re fully (or even largely) explained by the practices that cause controversy.

"Astoundingly" few preschoolers actually face suspension

It’s difficult to get your arms around the idea of suspending a three- or four-year-old from preschool. For most of us (if we’re even able to remember back that far), pre-K discipline basically meant quiet time in the corner, miserably sulking while our friends laughed and colored.

A solution in search of a problem: On the recent efforts to change Ohio’s school accountability framework

Value-added does not need replacing

Why this year's NCTQ yearbook is the tipping point for teacher effectiveness

Upon the release of our first comprehensive Yearbook that included state grades in 2009, the he

The effect of public and private schooling on anti-Semitism

Attending a religious school might reduce bigotry. Kevin Mahnken

Special education trends in charter schools

More myth-busting evidence about serving kids with special needs. Jamie Davies O'Leary

Teacher autonomy in the classroom

Individual authority has decreased slightly, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Robert Pondiscio

If you build it, they will come

The creation of Brooklyn Ascend charter school, textbooks in Texas, and substitute teachers in impoverished schools.

Resistance is futile

For school choice advocates, victory is inevitable. David Griffith

America's Best and Worst Cities for School Choice (EMBARGOED until 12:01 E.D.T. on December 9, 2015)

How five states are boosting college readiness in twelfth grade

As states have implemented college and career readiness standards, it has sometimes been assumed that most of the work and attention has occurred at the elementary grades. In truth, many states have been working for some time to ensure that grade twelve prepares all students for post-secondary success.

Principles That Should Govern School Accountability: A Joint Statement from the California Charter Schools Association and the Ohio Office of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Five key principles

Don't let shuttered schools rot

There’s something about the sight of an abandoned school that tears at your heart.

States v. districts in the Every Student Succeeds Act

The dominant narrative about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is that it shifts authority over schools back to state governments. But this belies a key feature of the legislation.

Parents: Children's first math teachers

We’ve seen a lot of hand wringing over math achievement in this country. Our students continue to underperform against their peers in other countries, lighting a fire under educators and politicians to push new STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programming in schools. While these panicked efforts have admirable intentions, they are mostly barking up the wrong tree.