For the past nine months, the battle against Covid-19 has required school districts to constantly adapt as conditions evolved. School indoor air quality is the next challenge districts must successfully meet if in-person instruction is to continue or resume. Let me begin with some points I think many people reading this agree on:
Teachers unions have become the main barriers to school reopenings in places where they are feasible. Students are the ones paying the price.
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli and David Griffith are joined by Doug Lemov and Erica Woolway, co-managing director and chi
After the release of a new study I co-authored for the Thomas B.
“Too many aspiring teachers lack sufficient knowledge and preparation to guide students through these tough times.” —Hechinger Report Since before Covid-19, the Vision Coalition in Delaware has been rethinking high school to bring hands-on, technical, and projec
Two big public-school systems in the D.C. area are on the verge of letting their zeal for equity and racial justice lead to consequences they may end up regretting. Fairfax County, which operates one of America’s best known and most esteemed “exam schools,” is may use a lottery, rather than test scores and other quality measures, for admissions. And Loudoun County is considering revising its rules for “professional conduct” by school staff to punish employees—teachers included—in truly Orwellian ways.
Of the nearly 2,000 public school students beginning high school in the South Bronx (District 8 of NYC public schools) in 2015, only 2 percent graduated ready for college four years later.
Last month, Teachers College Press is releasing Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck, a new volume edited by Rick Hess and Brandon Wright.
Proponents of test-based accountability generally believe that robust systems—those that set high bars for achieving success, generate copious and transparent data, and impose substantive awards or consequences based on progress (or lack thereof)—are enough to boost student achievement. Another school of thought posits that more funding to schools does likewise.
On this week’s podcast, Fordham’s Adam Tyner joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the
Only a quarter of students can name the three branches of government, and many young people are ignorant of the Holocaust. The best way to get civics back in the classroom is to test it. —Gov.
If America is serious about wanting kids to become better readers, our elementary schools need to spend more time teaching social studies rather than doubling-down on “reading comprehension.” This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the key takeaway from our new study. It’s also especially important for girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.
A new study published last week by Fordham, Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, suggests that to become better readers, elementary students should spend more time on social studies.
There used to be two sureties when it came to American K–12 education: Kids would attend school, and school leaders would demand more money.
Modeling the effects of a global pandemic while it’s ongoing seems like a prime example of “inexact science.” It’s also sure to depress. But it’s happening.
On this week’s podcast, Aaron Daly, COO of Brooklyn Laboratory Chart
Earlier this month, Harvard professor of government Michael Sandel published this opinion piece in the New York Times, arguing that discrimination towards the “uneducated” (i.e., people without a college degree) remains acceptable by society even among those who otherwise champion equality
When students at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho, begin returning to in-person classes September 28, everything about school will look different than six months ago.
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.
Even as phonics battles rage in the realm of primary reading and with two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders failing to read proficiently, another tussle has been with us for ages regarding how best to develop the vital elements of reading ability that go beyond decoding skills and phonemic awareness.
On this week’s podcast, Brandon Wright joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss his and Rick Hess’s new edited volume,
American schoolchildren should not be taught to hate their country, or to view it as an “inherently racist” or “white supremacist” nation. But to move forward constructively on this point, instead of in a manner that further divides the country, it would be much better for a broad coalition of the center-right to the center-left to embrace a teaching of history that is clear-eyed, patriotic, and critical.
There’s much energy in the cosmos these days around civics education, history education, maybe even “patriotic” history and civics education.
This spring, the nation was slammed by a pandemic that has thus far killed nearly 200,000 Americans, thrown millions out of work, shuttered schools, and upended the rhythms of teaching and learning. Suddenly the kitchen table became a makeshift desk and “school” came to mean hours seated in front of a Chromebook.
There are two aspects of standardized testing to which opponents tend to object: The testing itself and how the results are used.
Education sure looks different in a global pandemic. Some schools are opening for in-person classes. Many are teaching remotely. Some are using hybrid models. All the while, school administrators and parents are nervously keeping tabs on state watchlists to see who’s at risk and where.
On this week’s podcast, Timothy Daly, co-founder and CEO of EdNavigator, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss
Six months into the pandemic, the nation’s forced experiment in remote learning has resumed. But our education system’s design is ill-suited to the unique quandaries posed by Covid-19. District officials continue to ask parents for grace and patience, and many have continued to oblige, but if current conditions persist into next year and beyond, demand for choice will almost certainly increase as a large number of parents keep their children at home.
Ohio legislators recently introduced Senate Bill 358, which proposes to cancel all state testing scheduled for spring 2021. The provision calling for the cancellation of state exams would only go into effect if the state receives an assessment waiver from the U.S.
Covid-19 is upending what parents think about America’s schools, motivating them to seek different ways to educate their children. It’s also inspiring enterprising individuals and imaginative policymakers to create new ways to support that parent demand for change.
