When the Department of Education began offering No Child Left Behind waivers in 2011, states beat down the doors of 400 Maryland Avenue to obtain one. But did allowing states flexibility steer them towards better accountability systems?
Occam’s Razor is the well-known principle that “among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” Keep that in mind as various pundits hypothesize about why the U.S.
Some interesting education news from around Ohio
The view from Ohio on Fordham's recent brief which discusses ways to educate high-need students across the country.
It often seems that when wonks, researchers, and legislators get together to talk education reform, they exclude one group of stakeholders—a group for whom these reforms mean the most and upon whom their success depends: teachers.
This study by Dan Goldhaber and colleagues examines whether the restrictiveness of a district’s bargaining contract is influenced by “spillover” from contracts in a nearby community.
The following is the text of testimony on NGSS delivered by Kathleen Porter-Magee to the D.C. Board of Education on November 20, 2013.
Class size is an incessant policy issue—something like a leaky faucet. The din of the class-size debate drips in the background while the thunderclaps roar (Common Core! Charters!). Many parents and teachers drone on about class-size reductions; fiscal hawks want class-size increases.
The Philanthropy Roundtable's generally praiseworthy magazine hits a number of topical education-policy issues in its Fall 2013 issue.
No matter what side of the ed-policy debate you fall into, getting effective teachers in front of disadvantaged students is a priority for almost everyone. Yet this new study from Mathematica and AIR highlights just how far we are from ensuring that lower-income kids have access to the same quality of teachers as their affluent peers.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer delves deep into on-the-ground implementation of the Common Core in Cuyahoga County.
A brief look at recent reports on the Talent Transfer Initiative, an effort to kick start improvement in low-performing schools by inducing great teachers to transfer there.
Analysis of Ohio charter school performance on NAEP assessments.
State's charter school program, as a whole, needs a major repair.
This report by Kalman “Buzzy” Hettleman reviews the One Year Plus policy currently being implemented in Baltimore City schools—a program built on the premise that high expectations will lead to strong outcomes in special education, just as they would in traditional education.
This fascinating new study published by NBER examines whether early-retirement incentives impact student achievement. Researchers analyzed an early-retirement policy in Illinois that allowed teachers to retire early in 1992–93 and 1993–94.
Does slow and steady win the race? That’s what education analysts are hoping after digging through the newly released math- and reading-achievement scores on the bi-yearly National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
With the polls closed and votes counted, the most interesting school district in America will remain interesting:
We’re scanning the horizon for resourceful, intelligent, detail-oriented, hard-working individuals capable of excelling in an intellectually stimulating and often intense work environment. In other words, we seek a new cohort of research interns. Research experience is desired, strong writing skills are a must, and a passion for education reform is greatly welcome.
Who I am and why I decided to work on the Common Core State Standards
The latest study by IES attempts to document how American eighth graders compare to their peers around the globe. Using NAEP scores to predict performance on TIMSS, an international test that examines what students know about math and science, analysts included thirty-eight countries and nine other educational systems in their inquiry. And the results? Not terrible.
The “fifty-state review” of educational policies has proliferated into a literary genre of its own.
Senators and Representatives: It’s an honor to be with you today. My name is Mike Petrilli; I’m the executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-of-center education-policy think tank in Washington, D.C., that also does on-the-ground work in the great state of Ohio. I was honored to serve in the George W.
Short review of new report of international test scores from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Open enrollment options abound across Ohio - in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. It is often the school choice option of first resort. But is it bane or benefit for students?
I’ve been in Asia for other reasons (looking into the education of gifted students), but while on the ground in Tokyo, I learned of a fascinating policy dispute that, in the U.S., would be even more controversial.
With Common Core implementation in full swing, states are, for the most part, reaching for the same academic achievement goals. Yet according to this new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), the accountability structures being developed in state and local jurisdictions continue to be disparate in scope and quality. Must this be the case?
IMPACT—the District of Columbia’s controversial teacher-evaluation system, ushered in by former D.C.
