Commentary
Topics
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 24, 2021
Though surveys showed that many teachers considered leaving the classroom in recent years, and some predicted nationwide teacher shortages, the data show that teachers are sticking it out. —FiveThirtyEight “Can public money go to religious schools?
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Stop pestering education leaders to “follow the evidence.” Instead, host forecasting tournaments.
Education leaders—principals, superintendents, state chiefs, philanthropy heads—make lots of decisions, and we exhort them to “use evidence” when they do. But we should stop doing that for at least four reasons.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Teacher mental health days demonstrate districts’ priorities—and it’s not the students
America’s children are way behind because of the pandemic. And knowing this, parents and guardians have been justifiably expecting schools to rise to the occasion this fall. Instead, districts across the country have been shuttering this month following a wave of unexpected staff shortages. This is unequivocally a bad thing, but one that may have a silver lining: It helps increase momentum for school choice.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What is virtue and why does it matter?
Contemporary education has become too technocratic and divorced from virtue. This is a disservice to students because it robs them of what a classical education provides: the tools students need to succeed, not just academically and professionally, but in the deep and abiding sense of being able to flourish as free and good human beings.
Commentary
School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
In almost every state, funding gaps between rich and poor schools have been closed
The conventional wisdom is that American students from poor families are mostly stuck in sorely underfunded public schools while more affluent families have access to well-resourced ones. For decades, this was largely true.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 18, 2021
Education reporting needs to cast off the scarcity mindset and misleading headlines about school finance. —Chad Aldeman Religious groups are lobbying to change Biden’s childcare bill, as it might disqualify faith-based care providers from accessing funds.
Podcast
Governance
Education Gadfly Show #796: What Glenn Youngkin’s election says about education politics today
On this week’s show, Andrew Rotherham, cofounder and partner at Bellwether Education partners, joins Mike Pet
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Communicating the “learning” in social-emotional learning
Editor’s post: This post was originally published on November 8, 2021, by the Learning Policy Institute as part of its “Educating the Whole Child“ blog series.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The fall of the yellow-school-bus system requires swift modernization
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Effectively implementing social-emotional learning means getting the terminology right
Two charter networks, Uplift Education and Distinctive Schools, have provided models for supporting social-emotional learning (SEL) that other schools should emulate.
Commentary
Now it’s the GOP’s turn to mess up the critical race theory issue
Last week’s elections were a turning point in the fraught debate over how race and racism are taught in America’s schools. Democrats failed a major test in contending that CRT is absent from our public schools, rather than listening to parents’ concerns. Yet they may take hope from Republicans already messing up this issue in the form of blatant overreach.
Commentary
A parents’ education bill of rights is a fine thing—within limits
Terry McAuliffe surely blundered when he declared—out of context though it was taken—that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” thereby handing Glenn Youngkin a perfectly-timed campaign issue.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
How media coverage of critical race theory misses the point
It is not a controversial statement to say that the debate over critical race theory in schools has shed more heat than light. This is not surprising. When a relatively obscure and arcane academic field suddenly becomes a high-profile political football, hotly debated on cable news shoutfests, it is almost certainly because it has been reduced to bumper-sticker simplicity.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
A descriptive look at the structure of gifted programs in Washington State
Gifted education has been a much-debated issue
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Would eliminating college admissions tests really make education more equitable?
When the University of California began phasing-out college admissions test scores as part of a recent legal settlement, the rationale was “equity.” Lawyers for the students who brought the lawsuit said that “SAT and ACT scores are largely a proxy for a student’s socioeconomic background and race,” rather than measures of ac
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 11, 2021
“Education finance guru Marguerite Roza on how schools can best spend Covid aid.” —Education Week With recent elections elevating the voice of suburban parents and the conversation on critical race theory, what will the future of education p
Podcast
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Want your kids to thrive in school? Call the pediatrician.
The pandemic has provided a stream of unsettling headlines reminding us that our kids are not OK. They have grappled with surges in loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
2021 election recap: How four key school board races shook out
While the gubernatorial upset in Virginia drew the brightest spotlight, Tuesday’s election featured an unusual surge in the number of school board candidates vying for thousands of seats all over the country. Four races were especially noteworthy, both for the charged political rancor leading up to November 2, as well as the potentially broader implications from the results.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Reconnecting knowledge and virtue
Editor’s note: We're happy to introduce Jennifer Frey, who will be writing regularly for the Fordham Institute over the next year. She is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina, where she focuses on virtue ethics.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Lessons on protecting viewpoint diversity in classrooms
A story that became a flashpoint in national conversations around the effects of “CRT bans” is reaching its denouement: This past week, a hearing officer appointed to adjudicate the case ruled that the Sullivan County, Tennessee, school board was justified in
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Private School Choice
The complexities of accountability and private school choice
Among its many educational impacts, the pandemic has reenergized efforts to expand private school choice. States like Ohio, where it already existed, have expanded eligibility and increased funding.
Commentary
Commentary
What we're reading this week: November 4, 2021
Congress is inching closer to making universal pre-K, expanded free school meals, and cash benefits for working-class families a reality.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Governance
The “big quit” is an opportunity to fix our broken education system
Covid-19 sent a shock wave through an already changing U.S. job market, provoking “a great reassessment of work in America.”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Not everyone’s on board with turning schooling into therapy
Schools have been concerned with character formation and values since Plato sat with students under an olive tree. Today’s “social and emotional learning” is consistent with this age-old impulse. But in its form and function it can represent something different—and more worrisome—than its progenitors, especially when employed without full discussion of its priorities and methods.
