Year: 2019

We Have to Improve the School Improvement Process – by Chad Aldeman

It’s September. School is back in session in many places. And yet, state test results from last spring are still trickling out. Colorado’s came out September 1. The District of Columbia’s results officially came out last week. California’s results came out August 24th. twenty20.com These results are too late for schools to do much with. Principals are busy running their schools...

Education Exchange Replay: How to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism – by Education Next

On Aug. 12, 2019, Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, sat down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss a new study that looks to curb chronic absenteeism through randomized experiments. Rogers and Carly Robinson wrote the article “How to Tackle Student Absenteeism” for Education Next. Rogers and Avi Feller wrote the paper  “Reducing...

Where Did Charter Schools Come From? by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Next month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the enactment of America’s first charter school law, which Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson signed on June 4, 1991. This statute birthed a sector that has become not just a source of new schools for kids who need them, but also a structural reform of public education’s governance and delivery systems. It’s as close as K–12 schooli...

Test Score Gains Predict Long-Term Outcomes, So We Shouldn’t Be Too Shy About Using Them by Education Next

Editor’s note: This post is the sixth and final entry in an ongoing discussion between Fordham’s Michael Petrilli and the University of Arkansas’s Jay Greene that seeks to answer this question: Are math and reading test results strong enough indicators of school quality that regulators can rely on them to determine which schools should be closed and which shou...