Displaying 781-810 of 17817 results
Commentary
3.24.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

How the “math wars” are different from the “reading wars”

Natalie Wexler

Debates over how to teach math echo the conflicts over reading instruction, and some issues are similar. But unlike math, reading—in its full sense—draws on everything a person has been able to learn.

Commentary
3.23.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance

Charter schools make district schools more efficient

David Griffith

Districts that lose students to charter schools can and ultimately will adjust their behavior. And indeed, recent research implies that, while charters marginally reduce districts’ total revenues per pupil, they also make them more efficient. The challenge for policymakers is managing whatever transition costs may be associated with moving to a more choice-based system in a way that is fair to students and taxpayers.

Commentary
3.23.2023
Charter Schools, Governance

Conservatives’ blunder: Making enemies of public school teachers

Robert Pondiscio

Here is a list of ideals and values commonly held within a particular group of people in American life. Name the group of people who prize the following things: a belief in personal responsibility and individual merit; a respect for order, rules, and self-discipline; and a personal commitment to vibrant institutions that are critical to civil society.

Commentary
3.22.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

States can improve equity and outcomes in gifted education, but too many aren’t trying

Brandon L. Wright

Editor’s note: This is an edition of “Advance,” a newsletter from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute written by Brandon Wright, our Editorial Director, and published every other week. Its purpose is to monitor the progress of gifted education in America, including legal and legislative developments, policy and leadership changes, emerging research, grassroots efforts, and more.

Commentary
3.17.2023
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Keep the tests, but reform the test prep

Emily Freitag

When I started Instruction Partners and began working deeply and regularly with multiple school systems, I was surprised by some patterns. The same motivational quotes were in almost every school hallway. Many teachers' lounges had the same air freshener. There was a similar tension between certain departments in almost every district.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

We know student effort matters, so let’s start acting like it

Eva Moskowitz

Student effort is the secret sauce at Success Academy charter schools, says their founder and CEO, and they teach and celebrate it religiously. Indeed, after seventeen years of educating tens of thousands of students, careful analysis of homework, classwork, and assessment data has taught the Success Academy team that a large proportion of errors, up to 70 percent, don’t result from not knowing or understanding the content, but from a lack of care and attention to detail.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We must return to the core mission of education: academic learning

David Steiner

It’s a familiar and dreary tale. For twenty years, the math and reading learning outcomes of our nation’s twelfth graders have been flat. More recently, the performance gap between the wealthiest and poorest students has widened, while between Black and White students the previous gap-closing has stalled.

Commentary
3.16.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

How teachers affect students’ perceptions of school climate

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Once inside, it doesn’t take long to soak up the climate of a school. A simple walk down the hallway can give you clues. Is it clean? Are the bulletin boards up to date? Can you hear the energetic buzz of learning versus the cacophony of bad behavior? Do students and teachers greet you with a smile or a cold shoulder?

Commentary
3.16.2023

What we're reading this week: March 16, 2023

The Education Gadfly

Undergraduate college enrollment has dropped 8 percent from 2019, a decline quickened by a growing number of young people entering the workforce.

Commentary
3.9.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

To improve student outcomes, ask teachers to do fewer things better

Robert Pondiscio, Jessica Schurz

We are seeking to raise and enhance the capacities of teachers while, at the same time, placing ever greater burdens on them. But the inconvenient fact is that the nation needs nearly 4 million people to teach its children, and any number that large means the men and women who staff our schools and teach our children will be, by definition, ordinary people.

Commentary
3.9.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

“District innovation”: Not an oxymoron?

Jeff Murray

The latest report from UVA’s Partnership for Leaders in Education is breathlessly upbeat about the opportunities for radical, disruptive changes in K–12 education.

Commentary
3.9.2023

What we're reading this week: March 9, 2023

The Education Gadfly

“Why smartphones might make adolescents anxious and depressed.” —Freddie deBoer For certain students, a high-pressure school culture of achievement can lead to anxiety and depression.

Commentary
3.7.2023
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

“Because equity” is not a good reason to lower standards

Michael J. Petrilli

Noble is the desire to bend our system toward the needs of our most disadvantaged students—students who are disproportionately poor, Black, and Brown. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this. Leveling up is the right way. Leveling down is the wrong way. Expanding access and opportunity is the right way. Lowering standards is the wrong way. Guess which way is gaining steam?

Commentary
3.2.2023
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

We’d be paying teachers far more if we’d chosen quality over quantity

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Almost everyone wants to raise teacher pay. The push comes in various forms and from various places—mostly recently a proposal by Congressional liberals to create a $60,000 floor under teacher salaries. Yet we’d have far more generous teacher pay today if we hadn’t opted to hire more teachers and support staff over the years rather than raising salaries.

Commentary
3.2.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

No, Professor Boaler, we should not stop talking about learning loss

Nathaniel Grossman

Recently, Jo Boaler—a Stanford professor and one of the country’s foremost scholars of mathematics—took to the Hechinger Report to write about pandemic learning loss