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Education Next
Doing Educational Equity Right: Effective Teachers
This is the eighth in a series on doing educational equity right. See the introductory post, as well as ones on school finance, student discipline, advanced education, school closures, homework and grading. One of the ironclad beliefs among education reformers back in the day was the certainty that the achievement...
The Alexander Doctrine: Governors are Agents of Change
In education you need to figure out how to engage governors. So said former Tennessee Governor, U.S. Secretary of Education, and U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander to the National Assessment Governing Board in February in advance of its quarterly meeting. Senator Alexander sat down for a conversation with board member and...
Should Schools Be Rewarded for Absenteeism?
I recently had a conversation about absenteeism that I found exasperating. So did the superintendent I spoke with, I’m sure. You can judge who had more cause. The quotes here aren’t verbatim, as I jotted them down afterwards, but the gist is accurate. As Dave Barry would say, “I’m not making this up.”
How Not to Assess the Situation
Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To) In the years since the Covid-19 outbreak, the grades and test scores that anchor our education system have been relentlessly disrupted. As the pandemic swept the globe, American schools canceled annual standardized testing, college admissions went “test-optional,” and students were offered “hold harmless” policies that prevented their grades from dropping, regardless of whether they completed assignments or even attended virtual classes. Most end-of-year testing returned to K–12 schools in 2021, but much of the “assessment holiday” has endured. Most colleges continue not to require SAT or ACT scores, states are eliminating high school graduation tests, and grading standards have slipped to their lowest levels on record. States and districts are fueling grade inflation through policies that, in the name of equity, prohibit penalties for late work, recalibrate grading scales in ways that make passing easier, require teachers to assign credit for assignments that aren’t turned in, and even eliminate grading penalties for cheating.
Doing Educational Equity Right: Grading
This is the seventh in a series on doing educational equity right. See the introductory post, as well as ones on school finance, student discipline, advanced education, school closures and homework. Student grading is one of those issues that has an enormous impact on kids and schools, yet for years...
How Building Knowledge Boosts Literacy and Learning
Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Policymakers have entered the fray, after more than a quarter-century of stagnant reading scores in the United States. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new “science of reading” laws that require schools to use curricula and instructional techniques that are deemed “evidence-based.”
Two-Sigma Tutoring: Separating Science Fiction from Science Fact
An experimental intervention in the 1980s raised certain test scores by two standard deviations. It wasn’t just tutoring, and it’s never been replicated, but it continues to inspire. In the fall of 1945, when my father was not quite eight years old, his teacher told my grandmother that...
The Education Exchange: To Live and Die in LAUSD: Charters in Trouble
Ben Chapman, a reporter for The 74, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Chapman’s recent article, which details the recent struggles of charter school operators in Los Angeles, Calif. Chapman’s article, “The Nation’s Biggest Charter School System Is Under Fire In Los Angeles,” is available now....
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Education Next aims to provide news and research to bring evidence to bear on current education policy. Bold change is needed in American education, but Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points.
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