Month: January 2020

Underresearched and Unaddressed: How to Fix Summer Melt – by Kate Stringer

I always assumed the most challenging part of getting to college was the application process. The pressure for high SAT scores, stellar GPAs, and a robust list of extracurriculars make the process strenuous for students – especially those with limited resources. Photo: vimeo/jaymis And it is. But many high school educators call this process easy compared to surviving the ...

In the News: Online Education Startup, Byju’s, Becomes Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s First Investment in Asia – by Education Next

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization created by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, is making an investment in a startup in India that offers personalized learning services to students. The startup, Byju’s provides math and science learning programs for middle and high school students and also prepares students for competitive...

A Charter Boost for Special-Ed Students and English Learners – by Elizabeth Setren

Maximizing the potential of all students is the stated goal of many schools. When some students have specialized needs, however, the best way forward isn’t always clear. Consider students whose unique learning needs entitle them to special-education services or those who are English language learners. Schools invest significant time, resources, and attention in serving these p...

Inclusion in Action – by E. B. Solomont

Excel Adademy East Boston, a charter school that takes an inclusive approach to special education. Carolina’s daughter was in 1st grade when her teachers made an upsetting discovery: she could neither read nor write. The little girl had spent much of her kindergarten year in and out of the hospital, ill with what doctors finally diagnosed as a neurological disorder. She was pro...

EdNext Podcast: Free College Tuition: Lessons from Germany by Education Next

Students walk through the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. (Photo by Eric Gay/Corbis Images) With the prospect of free college tuition attracting many young voters to the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, EdNext’s Paul Peterson talks with Ludger Woessmann of the Ifo Institute in Munich about  free higher education in Germany. As Woessmann explains, German universit...

A Truly Diverse School – by Rann Miller

Billionaire technology investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith announces he will provide grants to wipe out the student debt of the entire 2019 graduating class at Morehouse College in Atlanta. A few years ago, I was having a conversation with a guidance counselor at the high school where I worked. I was planning to accompany a group of juniors and seniors to a Malcolm Bern...

The Education Exchange: Student Test Scores in Newark Charter Schools – by Education Next

Marcus Winters, an associate professor in Boston University and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss a new study by Winters that shows lasting test score gains for students at charter schools in Newark, N.J. Listen to the podcast now.   Read the full study, “Charter Schools in Newark: the Effect on Student Test Scores.” F...

What Was Behind the Rise (and Subsequent Fall) in Teacher Turnover? by Chad Aldeman

Despite the conventional wisdom, there’s very little evidence that current education policies are driving teacher turnover. In fact, although the teacher turnover* rate rose in the 1990s and 2000s, more recently it’s started to fall. This change can be traced to changing demographics of the teacher workforce as a whole. To understand how these trends are shaping the teach...