Ten years ago I called early college high schools the best philanthropic initiative in education that never scaled. But the idea keeps chugging along gaining steam with policy and practice innovations. It’s now big enough to call the demonstration project a resounding success and expansive enough to provide an attractive and accelerated education option to millions of families.
Nearly all teachers today report using the Internet to obtain instructional materials, and many of them do so quite often. And while several organizations now offer impartial reviews of full curriculum products, very little is known about the content and quality of supplemental instructional materials.
The 2018 PISA results are out. Generally, countries scored within an expected range given their past records. Except one. The scores are astonishing for B-S-J-Z, an acronym for the four Chinese provinces that participated: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Several candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary have criticized the inequities created by school funding formula
The latest PISA results largely mirror the findings from NAEP: America’s scores are mostly flat, with some widening of gaps between our high and low performers in reading and math because the higher achieving students are making progress while their less accomplished peers aren’t. America’s standing also improved because some of the highest-achieving countries lost ground. Here are five big takeaways.
In the latest episode of what promises to be a protracted saga in the Lone Star State, the Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) recently filed a federal lawsuit to halt the state’s takeover of the Houston school district, one of the largest in the country.
Author’s Update, August 5, 2022: Analysis of NAEP demographic data shows that retaining students was in fact not a major contributor to Mississippi’s improved fourth grade NAEP results in the last few years—at least not the way this article suggested.
The Content of Their Character: Inquiries into the Varieties of Moral Formation is dense and subtle, but it’s also informative and valuable, particularly for educators.
On this week’s podcast, Kristina Zeiser, senior researcher at American Institutes for Research, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk a
After what happened last night at Elizabeth Warren’s rally in Atlanta, Democrats might want to reconsider their strategy of attacking school choice.
When the New York City Council moved the other day to require every one of the city’s thirty-two community school districts to develop a school desegregation plan, it was yet one more example of municipal social engineering that prizes diversity over quality and mandatory over voluntary. If families with means don’t like their new school assignments, they’ll simply exit to charters, private schools or the suburbs, meaning that the city’s social engineers will mainly work their will on those with the least.
There’s been a lot of talk about racial equity in Montgomery County as of late.
“It’s like some bullsh-t way to get kids to pass.” That’s the cynical description of high school “credit recovery” programs an eleventh grader gave to the New York Post last year. But cynicism appears to be in order.
The student teaching experience is a crash course in lesson planning, organization skills, and classroom management—and also in learning from and gelling with the teacher who is in charge of teaching you these things. That can be challenging, especially since cooperating teachers (CTs) are recruited in multiple ways, none of which is all that thoughtful or organized.
On this week’s podcast, Kim Marshall, author of The Best of the Marshall Memo, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk about
The words “American Dream” are shorthand for describing an individual’s pathway to opportunity and a successful life. Historically, K–12 schools provide young people with the foundational knowledge and skills they need for achieving success and the American Dream.
Education is a great equalizer, yet our nation does not consistently support advanced students, especially low-income, and racial and language minority students. Too often, these students are drastically under-challenged in school, leading to boredom, underachievement and incalculable amounts of lost potential.
American education is taking a welcome and overdue interest in curriculum, but there’s no reason to expect that to result in sudden and dramatic gains in student achievement, especially for our lowest-performing children. Curriculum does not exist in isolation; schools are complex institutions with competing priorities, almost hard-wired to metabolize and neutralize any “fix.” Curriculum advocates should brace themselves for years of struggle, identify allies doing the actual work, and prepare to protect their flank.
A new study by CALDER investigates how career and technical education (CTE) course-taking affects college enrollment, employment, and continuation into specific vocational or academic programs in college.
On this week’s podcast, Sarah Sparks, a reporter and data journalist for Education Week, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to
Last month, the Mississippi State Board of Education began a public comment period on a new proposal to eliminate the state requirement that students pass a U.S.
When I read the article in The 74 by the Colorado Education Initiative’s Rebecca Holmes introducing a one-day conference that would bring together educators, families, and students to discuss what school quality is and
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The past decade’s shift to significantly higher academic standards and more rigorous assessments means that many more students are now far below grade-level expectations. In recent months and years, there’s been much debate about how best to help such students catch up.
On this week’s podcast, Carrie Gillispie, senior analyst in P–12 policy at The Education Trust, joins Mike Petrilli and David G
What can be done to rescue failing schools?
Stereotype threat is when people inadvertently conform to negative stereotypes about a group they are in, for example their race or gender. A recent meta-analysis on the effects of stereotype threat has important implications for equity in the education system, the validity of standardized tests, and for teacher preparation.
The bad news from the latest Nation’s Report Card has us analysts wearing out our thesauruses. The good news is that a handful of states managed to make gains or stand pat on the assessment as their peers went backwards. Most noteworthy are D.C. and Mississippi, the only two locales where low achievers made gains. But several other states deserve credit for maintaining their scores in the face of adversity.
In our work with schools at CenterPoint, we often are asked to help design or support the implementation of research-based, high quality curriculum. Almost invariably, discussions with school leaders turn to the connections among and between the core curriculum and the tiered supports for students who are off grade level and struggling to advance.
By the time struggling students reach middle school, it’s pretty obvious it took time for them to get several grade levels behind. It’s also obvious we have numerous ways to help these students. I’m guessing many other submissions to Wonkathon 2019 describe these strategies and approaches. What isn’t so obvious, however, is what’s causing some students to struggle.
