A Better Use for Tests
Test results can be useful not only in understanding how a student is doing in the present, but also in predicting how they will do much further in the future.
Test results can be useful not only in understanding how a student is doing in the present, but also in predicting how they will do much further in the future.
Each year, millions of American families receive their children's results from federally-mandated tests. What if we used the data to tell them something about where their kids are going, not just where they've been?
Every year, high-achieving students—especially students of color and those from low-income families—lose ground in school, in spite of their potential and talent. What if there was a simple way to disrupt this decline? We designed an experiment to test one possible strategy.
If the school day better aligned with the work day, busy parents wouldn't be stretched quite so thin. A new bill proposes one way to address that.
Leaders of some of the country's most successful companies are promising to invest in their people. What does that look like?
A new study on housing vouchers reveals that one factor makes people more likely to take advantage of opportunity: help.
Even if students don't lose a ton of ground over the summer months, summer learning still matters.
What does a 1983 Eddie Murphy movie have to do with our education system? More than you might think.
Tests should measure what we want our kids to know. And when they haven't learned those things, then we should worry.
In other fields, fraud is fraud. But in education, as long as it's "for the children," it gets a pass.
Elected officials all say they care about parents. But when the rubber meets the road, do they really?
What’s good for employees and their families is good for employers as well.
What if the truest measure of a school is the richness of the work it asks students to tackle every day?
A basic math problem about a tree is stumping too many students. This is why it matters.
A child whose parents cannot afford food already has way more reminders about that on a daily basis than any kid needs.
You probably didn’t notice, but Louisiana just made it a lot easier for families to be engaged with their children’s education.
An enrollment system built for fairness and targeted support helped 87% of students from closing schools get one of their top three school choices.
The discussion about improving outcomes for students from low-income families has been sadly oversimplified.
The U.S. has some of the worst, most unequal parental leave policies in the world, and millions of working parents don’t get a day of paid leave.
A recent study found American teenagers are waiting longer to get their first paid jobs, learn to drive, and go on dates.
Finding and keeping talented people is an ever-increasing and costly challenge for businesses of all types.
Many students who depart closing schools end up in schools that are no better.
Education polls should focus on issues as families experience them, on a personal level, rather than abstract policy debates.
More New Orleans students are taking and passing AP exams. But it's clear we can still do much better.
We need to reject the false choice between learning and fun. Kids don’t cease to be free when they are asked to learn something.
School choice is an important tool for families, but it’s not all they need—not even close.
Let’s retire the weak clichés. Education’s no gift to be given; it’s something you claim for yourself and your family.
A recent Upshot analysis of home prices and school quality in major urban areas makes us wonder.
Not every school that has been earning an A under Louisiana's current rating system is actually a top-performing school, and some very worthy schools are being overlooked.
Student growth isn’t everything. Just because a school has high growth doesn’t mean it’s always going to be a great school, or a great school for every family. It’s one piece of data. But I’m not sure how we could give good counsel to families about their school choices without it.
Parents should cut themselves some slack. Killing yourself to raise a superchild is going to make you crazy — and probably won’t work.
It's not terribly surprising that school spending went up after Hurricane Katrina and as New Orleans shifted to a charter school-based system. It’s <em>how</em> the spending increased that’s worth a closer look.
There’s nothing wrong with moms and dads advocating for their kids. The problem is that some families are better situated to advocate for their children, and they’re getting what they want while others don’t.
There's no single formula for running a school that families are passionate about. But there are some basic building blocks that far too many schools skip.
he state's plan to base 25 percent of a school's grade on how much students grow at the school is a step in the right direction.
Most families don’t live in the same reality as the families who are opting out.
John and his wife Melissa are enormously accomplished education professionals—but they are also parents trying to find a path for their children. We asked them to share how they approach the hard work of parenting.
When families have the ability to choose schools, do they flock to higher-performing schools? We took a closer look at kindergarten enrollment data in New Orleans to find out.
Instead of asking parents if they want their school to remain open, we should ask them whether they would choose to stay if they had other options. And give them real options.
Changing how school grades are calculated changes the overall picture of school performance -- and yields new insights about New Orleans' schools.
When we work with families at EdNavigator, they are more interested in how much a school helps students <em>grow</em> than how many students demonstrate proficiency overall. What if we gave greater consideration to a school’s success in growing its students? We did just that.
There aren’t enough good programs. The good programs aren’t always affordable. Or they’re already full. Or they only run for three hours a day, and how is a single parent going to pick up her children at camp, get them to another affordable child care option, and get back to work?
If parents feel strongly that the tests aren’t educationally valuable for their kids, no one should force them to participate or punish them for opting out. But that doesn't mean they <em>should</em> opt out.
What happens when students aren’t safe in school? And when the harm comes not from other students but from adults who are specifically charged with keeping children safe?
Students are the real victims in these incidents. They’re the ones who are misled about what they have learned and can do. They’re the ones who unwillingly carry away tarnished academic records. They’re the ones who are forced to re-take exams and try to learn in schools distracted by audits and investigations. They’re the ones who were lied to.
Even in New Orleans, which is ten years into its all-choice era, this is still hard work for families, schools, and administrators. There’s a real difference between “increasing school choice” as an abstract policy position and making school choice work in practice.
Teachers and parents often “engage” about student progress, yet part ways without getting on the same page. In many cases, that’s easier than dealing with the hard truth. Learning problems linger and worsen before they are addressed. Years later, someone looks at a thick file and says, “How is it possible that nobody intervened to help this child?”