The New York Times ran an interminable front-page piece on Sunday raising doubts about the ethics and propriety of teachers who promote commercial products, especially those from big tech firms like Apple and Google, for use by other teachers and their schools. The example that reporter Natasha Singer focused on—”one of the tech-savviest teachers in the United States̶...

Robert Pondiscio joins EdNext editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss the curriculum-driven reform efforts led by the Louisiana Department of Education. Robert is the author of a new article, “Louisiana Threads the Needle on Ed Reform: Launching a coherent curriculum in a local-control state.” The EdNext Podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, Soundcloud, Stitche...

Do computers help or hinder classroom learning in college? Step into any college lecture and you’ll find a sea of students with laptops and tablets open, typing as the professor speaks. With their enhanced ability to transcribe content and look up concepts on the fly, are students learning more from lecture than they were in the days of paper and pen? A growing body of evidenc...

Let’s assume that nobody is going to end up taking state assessments or end-of-course exams this spring. One way or another, everyone will be waived from those federal obligations and their state-imposed counterparts, mainly at the high-school level. The College Board and ACT are striving to improvise, reschedule, and reformat their volitional tests, such as AP and SAT, and so...

Students at Dickinson College march in support of harsher consequences for students who commit sexual offenses. Over the past decade, federal regulation of education under Title IX has been sucked into the impetuous vortex of partisan polarization. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits schools that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex...

In November, voters will have a chance to weigh in directly on the state’s charter school policy. Should they vote to allow more charter schools? Which direction does the evidence point? In this week’s podcast, EdNext editor-in-chief Marty West talks with Sarah Cohodes of Teachers College. Cohodes and Susan Dysnarski are the authors of “Massachusetts Charter C...

Since publishing “Daddy School,” I’ve gotten a ton of emails. “How is the homeschool schedule working, and what have you changed after a few days? Usually, they attach a meme like this one. As always, there’s important truth in a meme: Don’t try for an A in this situation! That’s nuts. Aspire to a B− as a parent teacher. After three days, here were my ratings on a scale...

Envision a future where students’ unique strengths and interests are both respected and harnessed—where each child reaches his or her greatest potential. The education systems that will achieve this are characterized by individualized pathways, timely support, flexible pacing and data-based decision making.  As our friend Martin West recently pointed out, the opportunity to mov...

A visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bailey, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss why closing schools may help slow the Covid-19 pandemic, and how long it may be until they re-open. Listen to the podcast now. Read Bailey’s blog post,  “Covid-19 Closed Schools. When Should They Reopen?.” The EdNext Podcast is avail...