Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is...

Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is...

At the tail end of a recent symposium titled “Why children can’t read—and what we can do about it” hosted by American Enterprise Institute, Margaret Goldberg, a California first grade teacher and...

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the...

Join us to discuss the implications of Fordham's recently published report Charter Schools and English Learners in the Lone Star State.

Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is...

Scholars and testing companies have been following grade inflation for decades. The first ACT study on the topic dates to the mid-1990s, while researchers have used SAT data to study grade inflation...

Editor’s note: This was the first-place submission, out of nineteen, to Fordham’s 2019 Wonkathon, in which we asked participants to answer the question: “What’s the best way to help students who are...

A new study demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The working paper offers compel...

In the first semester of the 2019–20 school year, the San Diego Unified school district board discovered that 20 percent of Black students had received a D or F grade. In comparison, 7 percent of...

Many low-income parents and parents of color are in solidarity with most teachers in not wanting their children to return to school buildings until the pandemic has passed. One obvious explanation is...

What if you were told that elementary schools in the United States are teaching children to be poor readers?

With campuses closed due to the pandemic, LAUSD is struggling with distance learning. Only two-thirds of high school students are participating daily.

Things might look very different in education—we might even manage to sustain promising practices and reform initiatives long enough for them to bear fruit—if advocates for various programs and...

Any discussion about “equity” in education that is not first and foremost a discussion about literacy is unserious. Wide and persistent gaps between White and Black students, stretching back decades,...

At the tail end of a recent symposium titled “Why children can’t read—and what we can do about it” hosted by American Enterprise Institute, Margaret Goldberg, a California first grade teacher and...

A new study demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The working paper offers compel...

Education is a great equalizer, yet our nation does not consistently support advanced students, especially low-income, and racial and language minority students. Too often, these students are...

After a fantastic seven-year run at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, our colleague Robert Pondiscio is heading to the more spacious pasture of the American Enterprise Institute, where he will join...

I’m a rather dreadful cook. Nonetheless, in the summer, with easy access to farm-fresh vegetables and the internet’s profusion of recipes, my wan table occasionally turns into something resembling a...

Every year, I ask my students to memorize a poem, but I intentionally avoid using the word “memorize.” Rather, they must learn Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Langston Hughes’s A...

I became a disciple of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. early in my teaching career for one simple reason. His theories about reading comprehension—and his alone—described precisely what I witnessed every day in my...

A new study demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The working paper offers compel...

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the...

Since the beginning of the common school movement in the 1800s, we have valued our institutions of public education for their unifying nature, and the creation of a literate populace is an essential...

Editor’s note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently launched “The Acceleration Imperative,” a crowd-sourced, evidence-based resource designed to aid instructional leaders’ efforts to address the...

Thirteen states and D.C. still mandate face masks for students, as do myriad individual districts in places that defer to local leaders. In total, about half of American students have to wear a mask...

Research and our personal experience tell us that the single most important factor affecting student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. No technology, tool, or other seemin...

I became a disciple of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. early in my teaching career for one simple reason. His theories about reading comprehension—and his alone—described precisely what I witnessed every day in my...

American education is taking a welcome and overdue interest in curriculum, but there’s no reason to expect that to result in sudden and dramatic gains in student achievement, especially for our...

Gifted education in the U.S. is too scarce and lacks substance, and that’s especially true for high achieving black and Latino children. A new report by the Education Trust concludes that this gap...

An analysis in the New York Times last month cheerily assured readers that Covid-related learning losses “look real but sub-catastrophic.” The damage also appears “to not be permanent, with students...

Classical education is a holistic approach that is geared toward the cultivation of students’ minds, imagination, perception, and emotions so that they can be equipped with character traits that will...

A new study demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum. The working paper offers compel...

With campuses closed due to the pandemic, LAUSD is struggling with distance learning. Only two-thirds of high school students are participating daily.

In addition to Bill Damon’s profound essay on “purpose,” Mike’s and my new book, How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools, contains multiple contributions with...

By Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Interesting question. Before I answer, let me ask one: What keeps Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, up at night? You know Amazon, the trillion-dollar corporation that delivers something like a five...

Quantifying learning loss experienced by students whose schools closed for extended periods during the coronavirus pandemic is vital. Figuring out the mechanisms by which the losses happened, in...

At the beginning of the modern ed-reform movement, getting onto four decades ago, urban Catholic schools were everywhere, serving as vital proof points in the debate about what was possible. While...

Academic acceleration—either through grade skipping or advanced coursework such as Advanced Placement or early college access—is a longstanding practice for primary and secondary students who show...

We must begin a program of NAEP testing for newborns. In the hospital. Before parents take them home. Maybe before parents name them. If we wait until age five to assess students in math and literacy...

Tennessee schools have gotten a lot of negative coverage lately. But they’re also the scene of hugely important positive developments that no one is talking about. You’ve probably seen the headlines:...

A common charge against classical education—education that is rooted in the classical texts of the Western ancient world and that seeks to develop the moral and intellectual character of its studen...

Interesting question. Before I answer, let me ask one: What keeps Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, up at night? You know Amazon, the trillion-dollar corporation that delivers something like a five...

Is Mississippi a cheater? Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik seems sure of it. Last month, the Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion writer published a column saying that Mississippi’s...

More and more schools across the U.S. have adopted a new grading fad: Teachers cannot assign a grade lower than 50 percent. If a student doesn’t turn in an assignment? 50 percent. Do they miss every...

Amazon unveiled a new online “storefront” called Amazon Ignite that will allow educators to earn money by publishing—online, of course—their original lesson plans, worksheets, games, and more. The...

I’ve lost count of the number of teachers I know who have either left their school or entirely abandoned education because of student behavior. A student physically threatened a friend, and the...

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2022 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to address a fundamental and challenging question: “How can states remove policies barriers that are...

Contemporary education has become too technocratic and divorced from virtue. This is a disservice to students because it robs them of what a classical education provides: the tools students need to...

The shutdown of America’s high schools has deprived millions of students of rites we previously took for granted. Coursework can be transferred online to some degree, but no virtual environment can...

Opponents of school choice regularly criticize private schools for not taking all comers, contrasting them with traditional public schools, which they claim are open to all. But that’s not true in...

A perennial complaint about holding students accountable through grades and test scores is that these mechanisms are biased against already disadvantaged students.

Good teachers are warm and compassionate people, and like parents, they tend to love all their kids equally. Nevertheless, they also have a special tenderness for the students who struggle in their...

I became a disciple of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. early in my teaching career for one simple reason. His theories about reading comprehension—and his alone—described precisely what I witnessed every day in my...