What the iPod can teach us about the failure of NCLB
Why education needs to learn a few lessons from Apple about evolving and improving over time.
Why education needs to learn a few lessons from Apple about evolving and improving over time.
Chris highlights a great resource for educators.
Editor Kathleen Porter-Magee introduces Fordham's new center for commentary and analysis on standards, curriculum, and instruction: the Common Core Watch blog.
Let's not gloss the challenges of transitioning to Common Core
The central problem besetting K-12 education in the United States today is still—as for almost thirty years now—that far too few of our kids are learning nearly enough for their own or the nation’s good. And the gains we’ve made, though well worth making, have been meager (and largely confined to math), are trumped by gains in other countries, and evaporate by the end of high school.
The Proficiency Illusion, science edition
The second edition of Fwd: Arresting Insights in Education summarizes Ohio state report card data for Dayton's district and charter public schools. Despite some recent gains, the phrase academic emergency continues to characterize the majority of Dayton's public schools. Also, youngsters in Dayton's charter schools outperformed their district peers on the 4th and 6th grade proficiency tests -- a finding that flies in the face of recent assertions that charter school students are learning less.
America: Take notes
Peter Meyer reflects on Tom Friedman's column about parents and education.
To improve student learning in Ohio, and in other states, we need to improve the quality of our teaching force.
Ohio adopted the Common Core standards in ELA and math in June 2010, but now stands at a crossroad in making sure statewide assessments are aligned to those standards. Ohio is a participating member in two federally funded assessment consortia—the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC)--but is a decision-maker in neither. This primer outlines both consortia and suggests that Ohio make a decision soon to begin the massive reboot required to realign assessments, professional development, and accountability systems to match the Common Core.
Each year, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute conducts an analysis of student achievement in Ohio's Big 8 urban districts and charter schools. 2010-2011's analysis looks at performance, growth (as measured by value-added), growth over time, comparisons between students in district schools, charters (and charters by type and authorizer type), e-schools, and more.
In this policy brief, Fordham gives its advice to Governor-elect Kasich and the incoming leaders of the Ohio House and Senate as it relates to the future of K-12 education policy in the Buckeye State.
Congratulations to Andrew Boy, the co-director and founder of Columbus Collegiate Academy, one of the six charter schools Fordham authorizes.
Despite the overall dismal performance of schools serving Ohio's poor, urban youngsters, there are a handful of schools that buck these bleak trends and achieve significant results for their students. This report examines eight of these schools.
The superintendent of Ohio's Twin Valley Community Local School District has come under fire in his first year on the job from the local teachers union for, among other grievances, trying to mak
The 2009 NAEP reading scores were released this morning with little fanfare for Ohio. There has been virtually no growth in the Buckeyes State's NAEP reading results, with only 36 percent of fourth graders and 37 percent of eighth graders in Ohio proficient or above in reading.
Brookings' Brown Center on Education Policy just released a proposal for ???America's Teacher Corps,??? a federally funded program that would recognize highly effective teachers in Title I schools, award them a salary bonus ($10,000), and give them a ???portable credential???
This week's edition kicks off with a great piece by Terry discussing the unprecedented move by the Ohio Department of Education to close a charter school sponsor (aka authorizer) for fiscal mismanagement.
It's no surprise that Ohio's economy is in crisis, but you might be amazed at the price tag for some of Gov. Strickland's new education mandates. Terry points out the implications of decreasing class size in grades K-3 alone (to 15:1), which will cost $784 million per year by 2014.
???Teacher effectiveness??? has made its way to the top of the education policy agenda, supplanting the focus on ???highly qualified???
This week The New Teacher Project (TNTP) unveiled its Cincinnati-focused report on human capital reform.
Video is now available from our recent event, World-Class Academic Standards for Ohio, which was held October 5 in Columbus, Ohio.
Ohio is on board with the NGA/CCSSO Common Core State Standards Initiative, ostensibly agreeing to adopt 85 percent of the standards that result from the effort.????
A Core Knowledge blog this week criticizes the concept of "learning styles" and educators' acceptance of this "unquestioned dogma." Specifically under critique is Michelle Rhee, whose DC Public Schools
Our friends at the State of Ohio Education blog rightly call Ohio's recent move to eliminate social studies tests in grades five and eight a "short-sighted decision," not just because a basic understanding of history, geography, civics, and current events is critical, but because Ohio students h
Don't miss this week's special edition of the Ohio Education Gadfly! One year ago, the Fordham Institute released a report titled Accelerating Student Learning in Ohio.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in partnership with Public Impact, analyzed the 2007-08 academic performance data for charter and district schools in Ohio's eight largest urban cities.
Beginning in August 2008, Ohio's academic accountability system includes a value-added component that measures student academic progress in addition to achievement. Fordham created this short primer on value-added to help business people, lawmakers, policymakers, and others understand this powerful but complex tool.