Statistics tell us that despite 61 years of integration and attention to equity, not much has changed in many parts of the United States. Students in high-poverty schools lack the supports needed to become college ready, and school districts that serve the highest percentages of low-income students and students of color receive significantly less in Read more about September Issue Brief: Equity Issues in Education[…]
Chester E. Finn Jr. And Brandon L. Wright of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have recently written a preview article in the Wall Street Journal for their forthcoming book, “Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students.” The article inverts the typical narrative of a focus on equity, and asks if we Read more about The Bright Students Left Behind[…]
School equity has long been an issue in the United States. This year marks 61 years since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that was designed to give the federal government the authority to enforce school integration. But statistics tell us that despite this case, not that much has changed in many parts Read more about 61 Years after Brown v. Board of Education, Many Schools remain Separate and Unequal[…]
Cross-tabbing refers to looking at education data for disadvantaged students across different categories, such as race and gender combined. Charles Barone offers us a useful example: Black males are many times more likely to be subject to corporal punishment – in school – than black females. Averages for black students across gender hide this phenomenon. Read more about If Everyone Loves ESEA Disaggregation, Why Is Cross-Tabbing Such a Problem?[…]
Students in high-poverty schools lack the supports needed to become college ready, according to a report from CLASP. Course, Counselor, and Teacher Gaps: Addressing the College Readiness Challenge in High-Poverty High Schools analyzes the nation’s 100 largest school districts, focusing on “high-poverty schools” (where at least 75 percent of students live in poverty) and “low-poverty Read more about Addressing the College Readiness Challenge in High-Poverty Schools[…]
Recent studies show that the demographic characteristics of teachers can impact student achievement. These findings point to the need for more female teachers in science and mathematics, as well as more ethnic minority educators. More than three-quarters of U.S. public school teachers are female. So it’s a bit surprising to hear an argument that there Read more about Diversity Issues in Teaching[…]
The U.S. is on track for a 90 percent high school graduation rate by 2020 after hitting a record high 81 percent this year. That’s according to the GradNation campaign’s sixth annual report released by America’s Promise Alliance, the Alliance for Excellent Education and others. The 10 largest states, including California, Florida, Georgia and North Read more about Progress and Ongoing Challenges: the American Graduation Rate[…]
When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002, the U.S. national high school graduation rate was 72.6 percent. Today, the national high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high of 81 percent and the number of low-graduation-rate high schools has declined considerably. While this progress is Read more about Never too Late: Why ESEA must fill the Missing Middle[…]
School districts that serve the highest percentages of low-income students and students of color receive significantly less in local and state funding than districts that serve predominantly white and affluent students, according to a new report from the Education Trust (Ed Trust) and a separate analysis by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). And that Read more about Funding Gaps 2015: Widening Funding Gap Between School Districts[…]
The Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED) unveiled a video series that features business and education leaders discussing why college- and career-ready standards benefit students and employers. The series consists of three videos and is part of the nonpartisan, business-led public policy organization’s work to support the implementation of high-quality K-12 standards Read more about Business Leaders Endorse Rigorous Academic Standards in New Videos[…]
Over the past 15 years, Teach for America has grown to a scale, and at a pace, that is virtually unprecedented in education and the domestic nonprofit sector more generally. From 2000 to 2014, the number of Teach for America corps members rose nearly tenfold, the number of alumni increased even more rapidly, and the Read more about Exponential Growth, Unexpected Challenges: How Teach for America Grew in Scale and Impact[…]
For decades now, education researchers have discussed the fact that girls tend to do worse in math (and to a lesser but still significant degree, science) than do boys. As follows, girls also tend to go into math and science related fields less often than do boys. This has been known by researchers for decades, Read more about Gender Gap in Education Cuts both Ways[…]
Andy Rotherham of Bellwether Education has a new article out in the US News & World Report that calls out a little-considered issue in education: the people who are making the decisions about education reform are by and large those people who did well in and enjoyed school. This means that there is a tendency Read more about Education Reformers Have a Big Blind Spot[…]
Jane Best and Emily Winslow at McREL Education have released a new brief focusing on current challenges of working toward equity in education. Particularly in a post Vergara vs. California education climate, educator equity and how to effectively distribute teachers to all students it is an issue on education professionals’ minds. With increasingly diverse student populations, Read more about Educational Equity: Challenges for Educator Effectiveness[…]
Marc Tucker has some focused suggestions for those who truly want to use education to bridge income gaps and increase social mobility. This week on Top Performers: public schools were once the engines of social and economic mobility in the U.S., but that is no longer the case. In fact, the very design of our Read more about Inequality and Education[…]
Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation’s public schools, according to a research bulletin issued today by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF). The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) show that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools Read more about A New Majority: Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation’s Public Schools[…]