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A Need for More Speed in Education Data
Part two in a conversation with outgoing IES director Mark Schneider. On Monday, I talked with departing Institute of Education Sciences Director Mark Schneider, who just wrapped up his six-year term. In our conversation, he argued for newer and better research centers at IES, along with a heightened commitment to producing timely and accessible reports. Well, as anyone who knows Mark well can attest, he almost always has more to say. I thought I’d reach back out and see if he had anything else he wanted to get off his mind. Here is Part Two of our conversation.
My Uber Driver Just Doesn’t Get Student Loan Forgiveness
My Uber driver had on talk radio as I got into the car. They were talking about President Biden’s wonderful plan to forgive billions in student debt. “Boy, that’s exciting stuff, isn’t it?” I marveled. “All those long-suffering borrowers are finally getting some relief.”. She...
Generative AI in Education: Another Mindless Mistake?
Picture the scene: A new technology has been introduced that is unlike anything we’ve seen before. This technology creates a new means of sharing information that is both interesting and entertaining and promises to generate new forms of knowledge on a regular basis. Indeed, this new creation appears so transformative, it leads one of the world’s most prominent entrepreneurs to predict that the method of transmitting knowledge to students will be radically altered in just a few years.
Research, Report, Repeat … and Reflect
Part one in a conversation with outgoing IES director Mark Schneider. Just last month, Mark Schneider wrapped up his six-year term as the director of the Institute of Education Sciences. At IES, he was charged with overseeing the nation’s education research efforts, including such well-known efforts as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the What Works Clearinghouse. Before assuming his role at IES, Mark was a vice president at the American Institutes for Research, commissioner at the National Center for Education Statistics, and spent many years chairing the political science department at SUNY-Stony Brook. Having known Mark for many, many years, I was interested in his reflections on his tenure at IES. Here’s what he had to say. (This is Part One of a two-part interview, the second of which is scheduled to be published on Wednesday.)
The Education Exchange: Is Mayoral Control of School Boards Good for New York City?
Vladimir Kogan, a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss a new report from the New York State Education Department which argues that control of schools should move from mayors to school boards. The report, “Mayoral Control of New York...
The 5 Percent Problem
In 1924, Sidney Pressey, a professor from Ohio State University, invented a teaching machine. The mechanical device, about the size of a portable typewriter, allowed students to press one of four keys to answer questions curated by expert instructors. A later version dispensed candy for correct answers. Education optimists were...
A School Sector in Search of a Name
What should we call the growing number of learning environments that lie between traditional homeschooling and conventional, five-days-a-week, brick-and-mortar public and private schooling?. So-called “microschools” and “hybrid schools” have gained enormous popularity in the past few years. The first Prenda microschool opened in Arizona in 2018, and Prenda has since...
The Divergent Roads to Post-Secondary Success
High school seniors have traditionally faced a binary choice upon graduation: go to college or get a job. But today, with skyrocketing college tuition and debt, and with most entry-level jobs paying less than a living wage, another alternative is on the rise: apprenticeships. These training opportunities offer the apprentice remunerative work while also satisfying employers’ desire for skilled employees. Should policymakers seek to expand apprenticeships—and free up public funds to support them? Or should we be leery of steering students into career preparation without the salutary benefits of higher education? In this forum, Ryan Craig, author of Apprentice Nation: How the “Earn and Learn” Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America, defends the expansion of apprenticeships. Ben Wildavsky, author of The Career Arts: Making the Most of College, Credentials, and Connections, argues for the enduring value of a college education.
22nd-Century Skills Guru Paul Banksley: “Math Needs a Makeover”
Paul Banksley’s publicist was on the phone. “We’ve got some big news,” she said. “And given your relationship with Paul, we wanted you to hear it straight from him.”. My mind raced at the possibilities. What might the 22nd-century skills icon, TED talk celeb, former...
Could Our Assumptions about Who Receives Advanced Education be Wrong?
Advanced education has always been controversial. Whether discussing gifted programs, acceleration, ability grouping, or honors courses, school leaders and equity-minded advocates have questioned the need for and effectiveness of such services. The debate has become especially acrimonious, primarily due to underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, and low-income groups in these programs....
The Education Exchange: Your Children, My Choice
Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the phenomenon of political leaders who publicly oppose school choice programs, while exercising choice options for their own children.
Lieberman Was a Leader for School Choice in the Democratic Party
Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who died last week at age 82, was, for much of the 1990s, one of the most articulate and persistent legislative advocates for school choice. Lieberman’s death prompted admiring statements from political figures across the spectrum who noted his contributions across a wide range of...
What Cabrini Can Teach Us about the School Choice Movement
The movie Cabrini tells the inspiring tale of Mother Frances Cabrini’s heroic work to provide dignity to Italian immigrants in New York City in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Most Italian Americans lived in desperate poverty at that time and were confined to slums where disorder reigned supreme in the forms of malnutrition, child labor, prostitution, and disease. A constant theme in the movie is that Mother Cabrini and her Italian-American compatriots should “stay where they belong.” Where they don’t belong, the powerbrokers of New York declared, is in the nice parts of the city.
Why Are Books Disappearing from English and Reading Classrooms?
Reading books—ideally great ones, together as a class—should be common practice in American English and reading classrooms. Diverse research supports this assertion and helps explain why the experience of reading books, especially shared books, is critical to ensuring better outcomes in English and reading. The idea that one...
We’re From the Government, and We’re Here to Help
An Excerpt from Miguel Cardona’s best-selling memoir, Reign of Confusion: My Years of Making It Rain at the U.S. Department of Education (Berkshire House, 2028), pp. 143–144. Chapter 9: My Free College Plan Comes Together. While pouring money on K–12 schools was a lot of fun, I’m proudest...
To Address Pandemic Learning Loss, Evidence Points to Tutoring
In the aftermath of the pandemic, schools across the country face an urgent crisis of student achievement. Most students will require a minimum of three school years to recover the academic learning that was lost. The deleterious effects of the pandemic were even more pronounced among our nation’s most vulnerable students, including those from the most economically disadvantaged circumstances.
There are No Shortcuts to Thinking
I really thought everyone would cheat. Halfway through the semester, I asked my students to tell me (through an anonymous survey) how they used ChatGPT in their other college courses. In my own class I had worked hard to show them how AI could be their TA: helping them brainstorm ideas, organize their writing, and focus and clarify their thinking around complex issues. That’s what a good cognitive apprenticeship is all about. But in my students’ other courses, well, all bets were off. Put simply, ChatGPT offers students the perfect shortcut to doing their work.
One Senator’s Plan to Improve Student Literacy
The ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Bill Cassidy has represented Louisiana in the upper chamber since 2015. Cassidy recently released a much-discussed report, “Preventing a Lost Generation: Facing a Critical Moment for Students’ Literacy.” As schools struggle to address learning loss, and at a time when “the nation’s report card” finds that just 33 percent of 4th graders are proficient in reading, it’s heartening to see leaders step up. Given that, I reached out to the senator to discuss his report and what he has in mind. Here’s what he had to say.
The Education Exchange: Does a Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Bill Have a Chance to become Law?
John Schilling, a senior advisor for the nonprofit Invest in Education, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the Educational Choice for Children Act that is currently being debated in Congress.
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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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