5 lessons in education policy from newly-minted Nobel laureates
Adam Tyner, Ph.D.This week the Nobel committee announced that the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics would go to Joshua Angrist (MIT), David Card (UC Berkeley), and Guido Imbens (Stanford).
Reforming licensing policies will help alleviate teacher shortages
Shannon WhitworthWith the effects of the pandemic dragging on for another year, labor markets are acting strange and organizations are struggling to find qualified workers. Schools are no different. The teacher pipeline has slowed to a trickle as teacher preparation programs see fewer and fewer candidates. Teachers have been leaving the profession early.
Bill de Blasio is decimating gifted education in New York. Will Eric Adams save it?
Brandon L. WrightMayor de Blasio is axing New York City’s long-standing gifted education programs. He plans to replace them with something else, but his proposal is almost entirely wrong. Fortunately, Eric Adams, who’s almost certain to replace him in January, has a vision of gifted education that’s mostly right, and he’ll enter office in time to fix de Blasio’s blunders.
Seeking a constitutional shortcut to educational excellence
Dale ChuDo students have a right to a high-quality education? A proposed ballot initiative filed in California last Thursday says yes.
Sorry Edutopia, the research base on project-based learning remains weak
Daniel BuckAs one paper put it, there is a “paucity of robust research” on project-based learning. Yet in the ed-school world and in many journals and professional organizations, it’s often touted as a pedagogical gold standard.
What do parents value in a school? An education choice experiment
Jeff MurrayAs supporters celebrate and opponents dissect the Year of School Choice, a timely new report tries to make sense of the way parents value, assess, and act upon avail
How well do diverse-by-design charter schools work?
William RostThe persistence of racial segregation between and within school districts has motivated some in the school choice community to develop diverse-by-design charters (DBDCs), which are defined as schools without a 70 percent majority of students of any race or ethnicity, plus 30 to 70 percent low-income pupils.
Education Gadfly Show #791: Is this the end of gifted education in New York City?
What we're reading this week: October 14, 2021
The Education GadflyAmericans increasingly embraced school choice during the pandemic, testing the country’s historical commitment to traditional public education.
How well are schools teaching disadvantaged students to read? In California, it depends where you live.
Todd CollinsHow do we know if a school district is doing one of its most basic jobs—teaching students to read? That’s one of the main questions the California Reading Coalition, which I helped organize earlier this year, set out to answer with the California Reading Report Card, released in September.
The college gender gap begins in kindergarten
Michael J. PetrilliA recent Wall Street Journal article set off a pundit-palooza on the topic of the female advantage in higher education, with many suggesting that young men have “given up on college.” But American students who are academically well-prepared for college continue to matriculate and graduate. It’s just that many more of them are female. The reason for that starts in kindergarten.
Critical race theory distracts from academic underachievement
Bob Woodson, Ian RoweWith a new school year underway, parents, teachers, and children anxiously return to classrooms amidst an ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But this year, school board members, teachers, academics, politicians, and parents continue to argue over critical race theory and how to enact its version of equity.
Do experts share responsibility for pitchfork-wielding mobs?
Adam Tyner, Ph.D.Angry citizens, enraged over everything from mask mandates to “critical race theory,” have been storming school board meetings, threatening members, and driving some to quit, reports a
What we're reading this week: October 7, 2021
The Education GadflyThe science of reading is strong, but not unassailable, and would benefit from some healthy skepticism. —Education Week Stories are how humans find meaning and identity. Has America lost its story?
There’s more to the education story than what’s in the news
Emily FreitagEducation news is pretty depressing these days. Last week’s feed included articles about cafeteria staffing shortages and supply chain concerns, reporting about declining enrollment, predictions about resignations due to vaccine mandates, findings on teacher stress, reporting about an uptick in student fights, and lots of documentation of demonization in adults’ battles over mask policy.
The impact of voucher programs: A deep dive into the research
Pedro EnamoradoLast month, my colleagues Mike Petrilli and David Griffith had a conversation with Patrick Wolf, a leading school choice scholar at the University of Arkansas, about the impact of voucher programs on the Education Gadfly Show podcast.
Inspire a reverence for liberty by teaching the full story of American slavery
Ian RoweOn September 12, 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the request of the New York Civil War Commission at the Centennial Celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation.
We are squandering the talents of too many low-income high achievers
Aaron Churchill , Michael J. PetrilliFar too many high-achieving children are drifting through middle and high school. Despite their potential, they don’t end up taking AP exams, achieving high marks on their ACTs, or going to four-year colleges. This limits their ability to move up the social ladder, threatens U.S. economic competitiveness, and derails our aspirations for a more just society. We must stop buying into the false assumption that high-achieving kids will do fine on their own.
Use pandemic recovery funds to empower both schools and families
Bruno V. Manno, ChairCovid-19 school shock disrupted our way of doing education, unbundling the familiar division of responsibilities among home, school, and community organizations. Nearly every parent of school-age children had to create from scratch a home learning environment using online technology and rebundling school services to meet their needs.
Measuring the social, emotional, and academic toll of remote learning
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.After more than eighteen months of pandemic-induced commotion to education, data continue to roll in regarding various negative impacts on young people.
What we're reading this week: September 30, 2021
The Education GadflyA study by Jay Greene and James Paul finds that courting Democrats has been a lost cause—and a costly one—for school choice legislation.
Performative teaching is undermining trust in schools
Robert PondiscioIncreasingly, teachers are not shy about expressing their views on charged racial and political views. This may be a symptom of a profound shift in our relationship with institutions and the role they play in our lives. Where institutions once functioned as molds of our character and behavior, they’re now platforms on which we stand to be seen. And this could be cratering our trust in them.
Rigorous courses are a good thing—and good for equity
Brandon L. Wright“As a broader mechanism for equity, [Advanced Placement] has fallen short, unable to overcome the powerful structural forces that disadvantage far too many students,” writes Anne Kim in a recent long-form article in Washington Monthly titled “AP’s Equity Face-Plant.” “If the ultimate goal
There’s a fiscal cliff coming, and some districts appear hell-bent on making it worse
Marguerite RozaWe’ve been polling district finance leaders about their biggest concern in this moment, and the most common answer is financial problems down the road.