Month: November 2019

‘It’s Not My Problem!’ Why Charter Schools and Districts Need to Work Together on the Politics of School Closure – by Robin J. Lake

District budgets are badly strained when many of their schools are under-enrolled. This is one of the biggest reasons that districts with growing charter enrollment hit financial hurdles. Meanwhile, charter schools can’t expand without access to facilities, and in a growing number of cities, suitable facilities are in very short supply. Understandably, charter leaders bristle ...

Is Disruptive Innovation Driving K-12 Privatization? – by Thomas Arnett

If you’ve followed the K–12 education dialogue over the last decade, then you’re probably familiar with the term “disruptive innovation.” Edtech entrepreneurs and school choice advocates sometimes invoke it as an indomitable force that will redeem and transform broken school systems. Meanwhile, people on the other sides of these debates worry that “disruption” is a flawed yet ...

In the News: House Committee Considers Education Spending Bill That Trims Trump’s Cuts, Drops Funding for Private Choice – by Education Next

The House Appropriations subcommittee will today consider an education budget that makes some cuts to the Education Department, though much smaller than what the Trump administration put forth, and does not include sweeping funding the president wanted for new private school choice programs, writes Carolyn Phenicie in The 74. The bill to be considered includes a cut of about $2...

Elementary English Learner Classroom Composition and Academic Achievement: The Role of Classroom-Level Segregation, Number of English Proficiency Levels, and Opportunity to Learn

American Educational Research Journal, Ahead of Print. Using mixed methods, we investigated (a) the association of the extent of English learner (EL) classroom-level segregation (proportion EL) and number of EL English proficiency levels with elementary EL academic achievement, using 2…

In the News: Yearlong Residencies for Teachers are the Hot New Thing in Teacher Prep. But Do They Work? – by Education Next

Teacher residencies, year-long programs that allow teaching candidates to work alongside experienced teachers while learning how to teach, have been praised as a teacher training model with great potential. Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum takes a look at the research on teacher residencies. Indeed, there is consistent research showing that teachers trained through residencies are...

Apprenticeship Programs in a Changing Economic World – by Eric A. Hanushek

The nagging problem of significant numbers of youth leaving school unprepared for career employment has revitalized interest in vocational education, particularly apprenticeships. Support for vocational education comes from people across the political spectrum, from both labor and business groups, and from the popular media. The clearest manifestation in policy is President Tr...

The Social-Emotional-Learning-Movement and the Self-Esteem Movement – by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

The longtime Democratic lawmaker John Vasconcellos is resting in peace since his death in 2014, but the educational disaster he laid on California in the 1980s is far from gone. Indeed, its likeness thrives today across a broad swath of America’s K-12 schooling, supported by foundation grants, federal funding, and both nonprofit and for-profit advocacy groups. Only its na...