Not long ago, nearly everyone viewed universities as beacons of knowledge, wisdom, and scientific progress guiding us toward a brighter future. After World War II, college enrollments climbed steadily with every passing year. Even when Democrats and Republicans could agree on nothing else, they both subscribed to the old adage, “the more education, the better.” Not so today. In...

This fall, in many (or most) places, schools will operate in some form of hybrid model. Students will likely attend school for portions of the week or a shortened school day, meaning that remote learning will continue to be part of the picture. That is sure to summon frustrated sighs from parents, students, and educators who emerged from this spring deeply disenchanted with re...

Online courses have the potential to improve instruction at every level of education. Adaptive online courses can allow students to learn at their own pace, with material adjusting to fit the needs of both advanced and remedial learners. Online courses can also open up more curricular offerings in schools that lack specialists, such as those in rural areas. Online courses are ...

New York Times columnist David Brooks David Brooks has long been a stalwart supporter of education reform, both the choice-and-charters flavor and the testing-and-accountability variety. So it was a real downer to read his recent column declaring that, when it comes to Black America, “Better education is not leading to equality.” What he should have said is that “more education...

How is the Every Student Succeeds Act different from No Child Left Behind? Randall Reback and Paul E. Peterson In this episode of the EdNext podcast, Randall Reback, professor of economics at Barnard College and Columbia University, sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss the kinds of changes in state accountability systems we are likely to see under the Every Student Succee...

Joanne Collins Brock, a 2nd-grade teacher at St. Francis School, teaches online in her empty classroom in Goshen, Kentucky. Schools were closed to students because of the pandemic. This spring, the coronavirus pandemic blindsided America’s schools with a staggering, unforeseen problem. On March 12, Ohio governor Mike DeWine announced that he was closing all of his state’s schoo...

At the Cleveland High School for Digital Arts, principal Jasmine Maze and colleagues created an “Instaschool,” allowing students to complete assignments focused on the pandemic just by using their phones and a private Instagram group. Cherry Malaque, a special-education teacher in Albuquerque, made home visits to her students as they completed their assignments. She showed up o...

Just how badly did traditional public schools fail at meeting the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic? So memorably and miserably badly that it has the potential to reset expectations going forward. No longer can parents expect the government, on its own, to educate our children. And no longer can public schools expect to educate children without partnering with parents in a mea...