Future Ed recently published a piece in which Michael Cohen and Laura Slover review the history of standards-based school reform and propose next steps for the future. The long campaign to raise standards in the nation’s public schools, for decades the cornerstone of efforts to improve the educational opportunities and Read more
Writing for The 74, Kevin Mahnken recently reviewed a new roadmap for American history and civics education titled “Education for American Democracy.” Excerpts of the piece appear below: Through a collaboration funded by grants from the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities, a group of civics Read more
Thomas Arnett, writing for the Christensen Institute, recently reflected on the necessity of mastery-based grading to facilitate personalized learning. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Student-centered learning offers enormous potential to better meet each students’ individual learning needs. By varying the time, place, path, and pace of learning, student-centered learning Read more
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 Read more
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 Read more
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has announced its new ISTE Standards for Educators: Computational Thinking Competencies (CT Competencies). CT Competencies focus on the knowledge, skills and mindset needed to bring computational thinking to all K-12 content areas and are designed for all educators, including those who are Read more
The Fordham Institute has been a staunch supporter of the Common Core standards. But reviewers there have noted specific improvements that a few enterprising states have made to the standards, as well as some other areas where improvement is clearly possible. Their recommendations include the following: Recommendations for English language Read more
To close achievement gaps, education leaders must adopt more complete approaches to outstanding learning for all, secure and healthy learners, and a culture of equity within low- and moderate-poverty schools. A shortfall in any of these three areas within a school magnifies the impact of unequal access to resources-educational, personal, Read more
New data from researchers at Stanford, based on some 300 million elementary-school test scores across more than 11,000 school districts, reveals the school districts where children are showing the most growth. The results do not follow conventional wisdom. Districts with high growth are scattered across the country, in contrast with Read more
Achieve has released a new report analyzing the English language arts (ELA)/literacy and mathematics standards of the 24 states that have reviewed and revised these standards after initially adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The report, Strong Standards: A Review of Changes to State Standards Since the Common Core, Read more
Of the nearly 100 different types of high school diplomas that are awarded across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, less than half prepare students for success in college and a career, according to a new report by the Alliance for Excellent Education. And while the national high Read more
There is a communication gap that creates a significant disconnect in how parents think their children are doing in school versus reality. In its second national survey, Learning Heroes found that 9 in 10 parents think their children are performing at or above grade level in math and reading — Read more
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Education Strategy Group (ESG) have released Destination Known, a report which includes recommendations to support states as they develop accountability systems that value college and career readiness and better support all students in achieving success after high school. The Every Read more
In Education Week’s Top Performer’s blog, Marc Tuker recently reflected on the gap between typical American practice and global best practice when it comes to college and career readiness. Below are excerpts from the post: In top-performing education systems, qualifications systems are designed so that at the end of each Read more
A new report from the Aspen Institute calls attention to how students’ social and emotional development must be integrated with academics in order for students to fully achieve these aspirations. This Time, With Feeling: Integrating Social and Emotional Development and College- and-Career-Ready Standards draws directly from states’ standards in English, Read more
When the Center for American Progress released its 2012 report, Do Schools Challenge Our Students?, many states had just committed to the Common Core State Standards. The standards were an attempt to raise expectations by establishing a new set of rigorous K-12 academic benchmarks, and the CAP analysis underscored the Read more