Recently in Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum reviewed 20 recent polls taken in the past year to determine where Americans stand on race and schools. Excerpts of the piece appear below: There are real divides in this country on how to teach about race and racism, particularly on whether to teach about Read more
Learning Heroes’ sixth annual national survey dives deeply into the beliefs and perceptions of parents, teachers, and principals. Some of its findings: Parents want to be as involved or even more involved in their children’s education. Safety should be a top priority in school, followed by academic progress, mental health, Read more
Writing for the Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay reviews new research that finds what teachers were saying throughout the pandemic – it is madness to teach students in the classroom and those joining by computer simultaneously. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Although educators are trying to keep schools open during Read more
Policymakers had hoped that the 2021–2022 school year would be a chance to recover from COVID-19 pandemic–related disruptions to schooling. Instead, media reports of staff shortages, heated or even violent school board meetings, increased student misbehavior, low student and teacher attendance, and enrollment declines suggest increased — rather than decreased Read more
Over the last few years, social and emotional skills have been rising on the education policy agenda and in the public debate. Policy makers and education practitioners are seeking ways to complement the focus on academic learning, with attention to social and emotional skill development. Social and emotional skills are Read more
For almost two decades, Project Tomorrow has hosted a Congressional Briefing bringing the voices of K12 students, parents, educators, and administrators to Capitol Hill and sharing the findings of their research. The goal is to provide information critical to the development of sound education policy. This year the tradition continued Read more
Adults, parents, and employers see today’s high school students as being less prepared to enter the workforce upon graduation than earlier generations of high school students, while half of today’s students themselves feel unprepared, a survey conducted by the Global Strategy Group and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation finds. Based Read more
Three years ago, TNTP set out to understand how so many students could graduate from high school unprepared for the lives they want to lead. To find out, they followed nearly 4,000 students in three large urban districts, one small rural district, and one charter network with three schools in Read more
If students are going to get the most out of school, they need to be engaged. Research shows, for example, that disengaged students are more likely to suffer a range of bad consequences, such as failing a course, repeating a grade, and dropping out. Yet however much rhetoric we may Read more
The PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools is the most trusted source of public opinion about K-12 education. This poll queried U.S. adults about a range of issues confronting education, including teacher pay and the teaching profession, school security, options for improving the public schools, perceptions Read more
The National Center for Education Statistics released a new First Look report entitled Principal Attrition and Mobility: Results From the 2016–17 Principal Follow-up Survey. This report presents selected findings from the Public School Principal Status Data File of the 2016–17 Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS). The PFS is a nationally representative Read more
A new Bellwether report by Kaitlin Pennington and Alexander Brand analyzes District of Columbia Public Schools’ teacher exit survey data to better understand why high-performing teachers left, where they went, and what they say would have retained them. As school districts across the country report various kinds of teacher shortages, Read more
Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) has just completed its 49th survey of the public’s attitudes toward public schools. The survey results show that Americans believe local public schools should be providing wraparound services, including mental health programs and after-school programs. The report similarly emphasizes the public’s interest in educators helping Read more
There’s no denying political climate change. The past 18 months have seen an enormous swing in the Washington power balance, a shift that has heightened the polarization that has characterized our public life for more than a decade now. How has this divisive political climate influenced public opinion on education 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
Increasingly, schools are becoming the centers of student well-being, providing more meals during the day, health exams, as well as greater social and emotional coaching. So the most recent federal report on children’s well-being gives a snapshot of what today’s 73.6 million children need — from mental health services to Read more