Twenty Years of Testing: A Teacher Looks Back; New Reports Look Forward

New research on the effectiveness of federal K-12 policies is part of national effort to improve testing and accountability mandates In 2009, I was a third grade teacher. I remember preparing for my annual evaluation with my principal, which included an observation of my classroom, my weekly lesson plans, and my students’ end-of-year test scores. […]

Addressing Pandemic Fallout: New Call for Proposals

Test scores have plummeted and racial disparities are widening. Student misbehavior and adult political disputes are disrupting teaching. Mental health needs are soaring. And more graduates are opting out of immediate college enrollment, bypassing the traditional path into America’s professional workforce – potentially for good. To address such urgent developments, the Center on Reinventing Public […]

Pandemic Devastation Demands More Student-Centered Learning Practices

This article was originally published on Ed Post.  After three disrupted school years, America’s K-12 learners collectively have significant unfinished learning and unmet mental health needs. While educators are working hard to help their students, our school systems simply aren’t designed to address gaps this large. The urgency to address the wildly disparate and varying needs of […]

Lessons from School Leaders: Managing Debates on CRT and AP African American Studies

A teacher helps a student with an assignment.

The debate over how schools should teach about race heightened this week when the College Board released a framework for a new Advanced Placement course in African-American studies that reduced some of the content from a pilot version — content supported by hundreds of Black scholars and progressives but criticized by prominent conservatives. The national fervor over the content of […]

Three Years of Studying Charters in Washington State: What We Learned

The pandemic prompted major shifts in public school enrollment and models for learning in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation. After three years, our study of these effects on Washington state’s charter schools has generated a number of important findings, which we invite you to explore now that our project has ended. We sought […]

Black Education Leaders say Leaving Public Schools Can Help Save Our Kids

For Black children, the public education system is like a dirty fish tank. They’re swimming in toxic conditions like discriminatory discipline and low expectations. But before the water can be treated, those students need to be moved to a clean bowl where they can live and breathe. Then, it’s time to clean out the tank. […]

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