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What we're reading this week: May 20, 2021
Here’s what these high school students went through as they tried to weather life during the pandemic. —New York Times Universal preschool, if not implemented correctly, could have unintended, negative consequences.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Promoting student well-being is an investment in academic growth
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Taking a racial equity approach to support student mental health
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Cultivating an equitable culture of K–12 health advocacy in the wake of Covid-19
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Cultivating SEL in a digital learning environment
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Addressing unfinished learning with targeted help and high-dosage tutoring
A growing body of evidence indicates that many students will enter the 2021–22 school year with a substantial amount of unfinished learning. The tendency of educators may be to use benchmark assessments to determine the extent of unfinished learning and then group those students according to how far below grade level they’ve fallen.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
To support the whole child, support the whole school
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The non-negotiables for addressing students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
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Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Break up urban school districts into smaller, independent ones
The resistance of teachers unions to return to the classroom in urban areas, despite early signals from health agencies that it was relatively safe to reopen schools and the knowledge that in-person learning is essential to the success of our children, has brought attention to what many astute observers have noticed for some time.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Breaking through the Covid fog and getting students ready for college—academically, socially, and emotionally
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Six ways schools can serve gifted students after the pandemic
Now more than ever, high-ability students from low-income families will need specialized attention and guidance from their parents and teachers. Many less-resourced families have experienced illness or personal and financial instability, and low-income students’ schooling may have experienced long interruptions due to a lack of resources at home.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
To the fountains for healing: Classical education in the post-pandemic classroom
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Some things I’ve learned
Two decades into what was supposed to be a two-year public service stint in education, I’ve learned a few lessons as a teacher, a writer, and an ed reformer. They include the following: teaching has to be a job that ordinary people can do well; innovation is an overrated virtue; and there’s no such thing in education as a magic bullet—but there might be magic buckshot. Read more.
Commentary
In praise of Robert Pondiscio, the Education Gadfly’s gadfly
After a fantastic seven-year run at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, our colleague Robert Pondiscio is heading to the more spacious pasture of the American Enterprise Institute, where he will join Rick Hess and many of our other friends, colleagues, and partners.
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Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Improving assessments and accountability in the post-Covid era
As U.S. schools reopen in the fall, a year and a half after nearly all of them closed due to the pandemic panic, what should be different? What needs to change if kids are actually to catch up? What’s important to retrieve from pre-Covid days? And what other changes, changes that should have been made pre-Covid, is there now a rare opportunity to initiate?
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance
How school district consolidation affects student outcomes and economic efficiency
Between 1940 and 2018, the number of public school districts in the U.S. declined from 117,108 to 13,551 due to consolidation, whereby smaller districts merged with each other or with a larger neighbor to boost economies of scale in the resource-intensive business of running schools.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Standards
First, do no harm: The initial impact of the Common Core on student learning
Ever since their creation and adoption over a decade ago, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been hotly debated and intensely villainized. The backlash to the CCSS initially took many advocates and supporters by surprise, as state education standards have existed in the U.S.
Podcast
Governance
The Education Gadfly Show #769: Should we break up behemoth school districts?
On this week’s podcast, Howard Husock, adjunct scholar in Domestic Policy Studies at AEI
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What we're reading this week: May 13, 2021
Here are some thoroughly debunked—but hard-to-kill—myths about schooling.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Social-emotional learning: The fifth core
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Supporting English learners when students return to classrooms
Meeting the needs of the diverse and growing number of English learners (ELs) is a pressing challenge for many schools, districts, and charter management organizations. Although many general education programs and curricula do not provide all of the specific supports ELs need, pull-out programs for most students generally do more harm than good.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The culture wars come for the Nation’s Report Card
Trouble continues at the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), the policy body for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Supporting students with disabilities as we emerge from the pandemic
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Four ways schools can prioritize mental health as part of a safe reopening plan
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Civics education—like barbecue—should not be one-recipe-fits-all
There’s not a lot that right and left agree about right now, but one big thing is the sorry state of civil debate. Whether the fault lies with social media, institutional erosion, or something else, the result is the same: a nation of people who aren’t good at listening to ideas they don’t already hold, assessing them thoughtfully, and discussing them in respectful terms.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Evidence-based ways to assess student progress
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The power of words
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2021 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can schools best address students’ mental health needs coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic without shortchanging academic instruction?”
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Four instructional strategies that can improve learning and are based on cognitive science
Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year.
