Recently, Chester Finn reflected on a new study which finds that achievement gaps have not closed in the last 50 years and educational improvements have not been seen at the high school level. Excerpts appear below: An ambitious, important new piece of analysis in Education Next concludes that young Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum have Read more about Achievement Quandaries[…]
The National Center for College and Career Transitions (NC3T) has released a new position paper, arguing for Career Connected Learning as a strategy for engaging students and preparing them to thrive in the adult world. Written by Hans Meeder and Brett Pawlowski, this piece provides education decision-makers and stakeholders with a sweeping look at the Read more about NC3T – Preparing Our Students for the Real World: The Education Shift Our Children and Future Demand[…]
Writing for The 74, Beth Hawkins recently reviewed innovations that shake up the high school to college pipeline emerging from the symposium celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Excerpts of the piece appear below: The symposium explored ways in which the traditional concept of school could be challenged, pushing particularly Read more about To Usher In an ‘Age of Agility’ in Education, We Must Talk Less About Schools – and More About Students[…]
All 2019 Wonkathon submissions are in. This year’s Wonkathon asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: What’s the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind? Fordham’s Flypaper received nineteen submissions from policy experts and education practitioners. As expected, there was a wide range of solutions offered, and no two Read more about How to Help Students who are Several Grade Levels Behind[…]
New Schools Venture Fund has released a new insight brief, “Using Expanded Measures of Student Success for School Improvement.” Nearly five years ago, in 2015, NSVF began investing in a national portfolio of innovative public schools that all embrace what they call an expanded definition of student success. So far, the organization has invested in Read more about Using Expanded Measures of Student Success for School Improvement[…]
Writing for The 74, Joel Rose and Daniel Weisberg recently reviewed an apparent paradox in education. Math instruction is both too rigorous and not rigorous enough. See below for excerpts from their piece: Walk into almost any classroom in America, and you’ll find at least some students who’ve fallen behind the academic standards for their Read more about Do Kids Fall Behind in Math Because There Isn’t Enough Grade-Level Material, or Because There’s Too Much? It’s Both[…]
A team of current and former Stanford University researchers studied whether racial and ethnic segregation at school still matters today by looking at 350 million test scores across nearly every school in the United States from the 2008-09 school year to the 2015-16 school year. The study looked at student test performance in math and Read more about Poverty levels in schools key determinant of achievement gaps, not racial or ethnic composition, study finds[…]
An interactive data tool from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University creates the first database that attempts to measure the performance of every elementary and middle school in the country. The data set not only provides academic achievement for schools, districts, and states around the country, but it also allows those entities to be Read more about New Data Tool Rates ‘Educational Opportunity’ Offered in Nation’s Schools, Districts[…]
Reducing chronic absence and developing conditions for learning are instrumental to improving outcomes for students and can be improved through policy reform and leadership. Schools and educators have the power to improve both student attendance and conditions for learning. A new Hamilton Project data interactive, “Chronic Absence: School and Community Factors,” examines the factors that Read more about What are the factors that affect learning at your school?[…]
In Fordham’s Flypaper, Erika Sanzi recently wrote about the crisis for American Boys in public schools. Excerpts of the piece appear below: There was a time decades ago when girls trailed boys in math and science and we as a nation deemed that to be unacceptable. Starting in the 1970s, initiatives and organizations sprung up Read more about Sounding the Alarm for Boys in our Schools[…]
Chiefs for Change, a bipartisan network of state and district education chiefs, released a report showing that many states, tacitly or explicitly, promote the use of low-quality K-12 instructional materials. In the most recent review cycles, some states did not approve even a single highly rated curriculum for school districts to use — despite research Read more about Choosing Wisely: How States Can Help Districts Adopt High-Quality Instructional Materials[…]
Most teens see anxiety and depression as “major problems” among their peers, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. It suggests that 7 in 10 teens ages 13 to 17 think those issues are more prevalent than bullying, drug addiction, drinking alcohol, poverty, teen pregnancy and gangs. Concern about mental health Read more about Anxiety and Depression as this Generation’s Major Problem[…]
Recently, in Education Week, Madeline Will summarized a new study from Johns Hopkins University that finds that if a Black student has just one or two Black teachers in elementary school, that student is significantly more likely to enroll in college. Black students who had just one Black teacher by 3rd grade were 13 percent Read more about Having Just One Black Teacher Can Up Black Students’ Chances of Going to College[…]
Janice Walton recently wrote a piece for Getting Smart, focused on the need for students to practice and apply Project Management skills in the K-12 classroom. She writes: One of the keys to successfully integrating a project-based learning experience into the classroom is project management. A teacher first must effectively plan for and manage the Read more about Project Management: An Essential Skill for Students[…]
Education Commission of the States recently released a new report exploring the design and impact of Creative Youth Development (CYD) programs and providing policy considerations regarding CYD for states looking for ways to narrow the achievement gap and support student success. In CYD programs, young people create original work through arts experiences and apply their Read more about How Creative Youth Development (CYD) Programs Support Student Success[…]
Ashley Berner, writing for Fordham’s Flypaper, explores the power of curriculum as a serious lever for change. Her post summarizes the research on this important topic. Excerpts appear below: American policymakers haven’t usually viewed curriculum as a serious lever for change. This is unfortunate, since a growing body of research suggests that a high-quality curriculum, Read more about Curriculum as a Lever for Change[…]