Podcast
Topics
Commentary
The power of the two-parent home is not a myth
Among several disturbing elements of Christina Cross's New York Times op-ed, “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” is the author’s seeming belief that unless growing up with married parents has the same effect on black children as on white youngsters, it is not worthy of endorsement.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Watch the movie, don’t just read the script: Teaching vs. curriculum
Fordham has produced The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar: Is What’s Online Any Good? Worth reading! Are popular materials offered on Teacher Pay Teachers, and similar sites, useful?
Commentary
Accountability & Testing
Those that live by the scores…
We are endlessly tempted—and strongly encouraged by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher—to infer policy guidance from PISA results. If a country’s score goes up, maybe other countries should emulate its education practices and priorities, as they surely must be what’s causing the improvement.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning
Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part II
There’s a large gap between the current state of education sector R & D and our aspirations for this research. As sectors, education and medicine have lots in common and analogies are often drawn between the disciplines. However, when it comes to evidence-based practices, there are stark differences between the two fields.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning
Why evidence-based practices don’t work: Part I
To be clear, I am in favor of building a strong education R & D sector. However, it’s important to acknowledge the serious shortcomings of the current system. It is because of this current state that I am arguing that evidence-based practices don’t work. I’m making two claims.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Lessons educators can heed from the grim findings of “The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar”
Almost all American teachers supplement their core curriculum (if they even have one) with materials they gather from the internet. National surveys show that supplementation is a growing phenomenon, and that many teachers use supplementary materials in large proportions of their lessons.
Commentary
Ed reform’s lost decade: Twilight of the technocrats
Ed reform circa 2010 was playing offense and on the march, energetically aligned against an intransigent blob, armed with moral authority, bracing and seemingly durable bipartisan support, and a strong faith in the ability to wrest broad student gains from higher standards, a muscular testing and accountability regime, and enhanced choice, mostly in the form of charter schools. Ten years later, nearly all of this has been reversed or in retreat. Big reform is dead.
Commentary
A roaring decade for school choice
As 2019 comes to an end, so does a significant decade for education reform. For all the Sturm und Drang over the lack of improvement, the education policy landscape is no longer the same.
Commentary
Private School Choice
Why Catholic schools have regained their place in education reform
At the beginning of the modern ed-reform movement, getting onto four decades ago, urban Catholic schools were everywhere, serving as vital proof points in the debate about what was possible. While too many traditional public schools serving disadvantaged communities were either unsafe, failed to produce graduates with even basic skills, or both, urban Catholic schools stood apart.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Teacher interactions make a difference in online courses
Online courses have produced mixed results. They can be good tools for motivated students. But many struggling students use online courses to gain course credit without realizing they aren’t preparing them for college.
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The Education Gadfly Show: Why rural education matters
On this week’s podcast, Daniel Showalter, associate professor of math at Eastern Mennonite University and author of
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How districts can mitigate the harm of popular but low-quality online curriculum resources
Editor’s note: This article is the second in a two-part series written by the expert review team from Fordham’s recent study, The Suppleme
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
Teachers trust each other more than they trust experts
The best grant I ever made? It’s a tough question after ten years in philanthropy.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
Why we reviewers are wary about the popular online curriculum resources teachers are downloading
Editor’s note: This article is part one of two written by the expert review team from Fordham’s recent study, The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar: Is What’s O
Commentary
Charter Schools
The glaring errors in NPE’s new anti-charter school report
Charter schools are increasingly under attack from the left.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Dear teachers, most of the popular lessons you found online aren't worth using
Amazon unveiled a new online “storefront” called Amazon Ignite that will allow educators to earn money by publishing—online, of course—their original lesson plans, worksheets, games, and more. The entry into the curricular marketplace is obviously motivated by a perceived market opportunity—and that’s not wrong. The vast majority of teachers are supplementing their core curriculum or don’t have one to start with. Yet we know almost nothing about the quality of such supplementary materials. Our new study helps fill that void.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Reading between the lines: What states can do about America’s literacy challenge
In her compelling new book, The Knowledge Gap, Natalie Wexler relates a story about a young girl in an elementary school in Washington, D.C., who, for over ten minutes during reading class, is busy drawing a picture on her reading worksheet. When Wexler asks what she’s doing, the little girl replies that she’s drawing clowns. “Why are you drawing clowns?” Wexler asks.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
A heroic effort to right the civics ship
Civics education has been a problem forever, or so it seems, and if that problem feels more urgent today it’s because so many are dismayed by the erosion of civility and good citizenship in today’s America, as well as mounting evidence that younger generations are both woefully ignorant in this realm—check out
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools
The coming KIPP referendum
Hard as it may be to believe, the Knowledge is Power Program, better known as KIPP, is now older than a lot of the people who teach in its schools.
Commentary
Does helicopter parenting help or cause harm?
A new study aims to describe the effects zealous parents can have on their children—behaviors popularly known as “helicoptering” or “snowplowing.” While some potentially troubling association
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction
The Education Gadfly Show: On online curriculum materials
On this week’s podcast, Morgan Polikoff, associate professor of education at USC, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to talk about Fordham’s new re
Commentary
Early college: The little reform bundle that could
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.
Report
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The Supplemental Curriculum Bazaar: Is What's Online Any Good?
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing
Why China’s PISA scores are hard to believe
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, School Finance, Charter Schools
What other states can learn from Indiana’s funding, choice, and accountability reforms
Several candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary have criticized the inequities created by school funding formula
Commentary
Accountability & Testing
PISA 2018: Leaning into the economic headwinds
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The Houston Federation of Teachers plays the Trump card
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.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Mississippi rising? A partial explanation for its NAEP improvement is that it holds students back
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.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction
The different ways schools go about character development
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.
