November 14, 2024
Florida, the Forgotten Education-Reform Star
Around the turn of the millennium, Florida was widely regarded as a pace-setter in education reform. Led by then-Governor Jeb Bush, the Sunshine State implemented an outcomes-driven agenda focused on prioritizing literacy, holding schools accountable, and expanding school choice, among other agenda items. The success of these reforms garnered national attention, with significant gains seen in student performance,…
November 8, 2024
It’s Time for Conservatives to Reclaim Our Place in Ed Reform
As the results of the election came into focus Tuesday night, Chuck Todd made a keen observation on NBC: Republicans’ biggest gains among Hispanic voters came in Florida and Texas, states that “have been very aggressive about expanding school choice.” That’s not a coincidence. Conservatives have long understood that school choice is a winning issue, especially in…
May 2, 2024
A New Lost Generation: Disengaged, Aimless, and Adrift
More than a quarter of America’s school-aged children were absent from school 10 percent or more of the time last year. There’s no shortage of explanations on offer for this surge in “chronic absenteeism,” mostly blaming the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath: lockdowns; lowered expectation; health and hardship; bullying and school safety issues. Remote learning…
April 11, 2024
The “Case for Curriculum” Is about Reducing Teachers’ Workload
Last weekend, I gave a talk at the U.S. ResearchEd conference in Greenwich, Connecticut, on “The Case for Curriculum,” based on a paper I wrote for Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which was published this week at The 74. But truth in advertising forced me to come clean with my audience: The case for curriculum is in equal measure the case for making the…
April 9, 2024
The Case for Curriculum Reform
The education reform movement over the past few decades has focused on standardized testing, accountability, and programs to transform the teacher workforce. During this time, there was surprisingly little conversation about the often slapdash and unchallenging curricula that define many American classrooms. Could curriculum reform be the answer to some of the longest-standing questions in…
March 14, 2024
The “No Excuses” Model Is Due for a Renaissance
In a dispatch over the weekend, the New York Times took note of the rise of “super strict schools in England,” marked by “strict routines and detentions,” silent corridors, and “zero-tolerance” policies for even minor student misbehavior. The focus of the piece is London’s legendary Michaela Community School, which has posted the highest rate of academic progress in the…
March 7, 2024
Proven Results: Highlighting the Benefits of Charter Schools for Students and Families
In 2002, I became a fifth-grade teacher at the lowest-performing public school in the South Bronx, New York City’s lowest-performing school district. A mere 16 percent of PS 277 students could read at grade level. The first charter schools were just opening up in the neighborhood back then; there were virtually no alternatives to the…
January 19, 2024
The Case for Curriculum
Since A Nation at Risk, Education Reform Efforts Have Mostly Stopped at the Classroom Door Executive Summary Decades of education reform have left policymakers, educators, and students alike fatigued and unimpressed. From standardized testing to accountability measures and smaller classroom sizes, almost every idea under the sun has been tried and tried again, except for one:…
September 22, 2023
Repairing the Damage Columbia’s Teachers College Did to American Kids Will Take Years
I’ve come to bury Lucy Calkins, not to praise her. Columbia University’s Teachers College announced this month what once seemed unthinkable: It’s “dissolving” its relationship with Calkins, sending the controversial literacy guru and her cash-cow publishing and consulting empire packing. The divorce came a few months after the New York City Department of Education made the…
September 18, 2023
Students’ Lack of Basic Knowledge of US History and Civics Remains a National Embarrassment
A new study from a pair of Penn State researchers finds that passing the US Citizenship Test as a high school graduation requirement does nothing to improve youth voter turnout. Within the last decade more than a third of US states have adopted and implemented a version of the “Civics Education Initiative” (CEI), but according to study…