Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers
San Francisco’s detracking experiment
Editor's note: This post was originally published on tomloveless.com.
Podcast
High Achievers
Education Gadfly Show #811: How one district scouts for talent for its gifted programs
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, April Wells, Gifted Coordinator in Illinois School District U-46 a
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Keep fighting for selective high schools
In cities across the country, selective high schools are facing increasing pressure to change their admissions policies to make their incoming student populations more socioeconomically and racially diverse. Closing these gaps is a laudable and important goal. But the most common strategies for accomplishing it are racially discriminatory, misguided, and ineffective.
Podcast
High Achievers
Education Gadfly Show #809: Diversity, the law, and the future of selective-admission schools
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Fordham’s editorial director, Brandon Wright, joins Mike Petri
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Attacking gifted education is bad policy and bad politics
Education for high achievers has come under siege in blue cities and states as the national focus has shifted to racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. But such attacks, even when well-intentioned, are misguided. They target a problem’s symptom rather than its cause, and in doing so, harm students and defy parents.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
A descriptive look at the structure of gifted programs in Washington State
Gifted education has been a much-debated issue
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Bill de Blasio is decimating gifted education in New York. Will Eric Adams save it?
Mayor de Blasio is axing New York City’s long-standing gifted education programs. He plans to replace them with something else, but his proposal is almost entirely wrong. Fortunately, Eric Adams, who’s almost certain to replace him in January, has a vision of gifted education that’s mostly right, and he’ll enter office in time to fix de Blasio’s blunders.
Podcast
Career & Technical Education, High Achievers, Personalized Learning
Education Gadfly Show #791: Is this the end of gifted education in New York City?
On this week’s podcast, Brandon Wright, Fordham’s editorial director and coauthor of
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
We are squandering the talents of too many low-income high achievers
Far too many high-achieving children are drifting through middle and high school. Despite their potential, they don’t end up taking AP exams, achieving high marks on their ACTs, or going to four-year colleges. This limits their ability to move up the social ladder, threatens U.S. economic competitiveness, and derails our aspirations for a more just society. We must stop buying into the false assumption that high-achieving kids will do fine on their own.
Podcast
High Achievers
Education Gadfly Show #789: Too many lost Einsteins
On this week’s podcast, Scott Imberman, professor at Michigan State University, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the new study he con
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Rigorous courses are a good thing—and good for equity
“As a broader mechanism for equity, [Advanced Placement] has fallen short, unable to overcome the powerful structural forces that disadvantage far too many students,” writes Anne Kim in a recent long-form article in Washington Monthly titled “AP’s Equity Face-Plant.” “If the ultimate goal
Commentary
Charter Schools, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Boston is punishing its Asian American community for its educational success
Boston just approved sweeping changes to the process by which students are admitted to its three highly-sought exam schools. The idea was to free up more seats for disadvantaged children, some of whom have long been underrepresented at the institutions. Yet in one important aspect, the plan may do exactly the opposite: It’s likely to significantly reduce the number of seats that go to low-income Asian American students.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Preparing students of all races to achieve greatness
When looking for models of ambitious inspiration, Americans often hearken back to President John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” address at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Six ways schools can serve gifted students after the pandemic
Now more than ever, high-ability students from low-income families will need specialized attention and guidance from their parents and teachers. Many less-resourced families have experienced illness or personal and financial instability, and low-income students’ schooling may have experienced long interruptions due to a lack of resources at home.
Commentary
High Achievers
How gifted students improve the outcomes of their classmates, regardless of their ability levels
Gifted education is usually thought of as comprising separate classrooms that participating students attend for part of the day, and that move faster through curricular material or examine it at greater depth than “regular education” classrooms. This, of course, is only possible because all of the students in gifted classrooms are up to the challenge of this enhanced instruction.
Commentary
High Achievers
New York City’s dismantling of gifted education could hurt Black and Hispanic children most
Last week, NY1 reported that the New York City Department of Education will end its elementary-level gifted and talented test after administering it in person this April.
Commentary
High Achievers
Cooke-ing excellence through research
I’ll miss the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation now that it has closed its research and evaluation department, where I served as director from 2011 to 2020. After almost a decade examining challenges faced by high-ability students, I’ve learned a lot. I want to share with you ten of the key takeaways.
Commentary
Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
The racial-justice war on merit-based schools is an injustice against excellence, critics say
At a virtual town hall in Brooklyn about how the pandemic will change admissions to high-performing selective schools, New York City officials got a lecture on systemic racism.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Gifted education done right benefits Black and Hispanic children. It’s not inherently racist.
As our country grapples with racial injustice, there are persistent calls to diversify elite institutions at all levels, from corporate and foundation boards to law schools and medical schools to undergraduate programs. All good.
Podcast
Governance, High Achievers
The Education Gadfly Show: The loathsome war on exam schools
On this week’s podcast, Fordham’s Checker Finn joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss the growing, misguided war on selective-admissions high schools. On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines how community college credentials affect graduates over time.
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Equity and unintended consequences in the Washington suburbs
Two big public-school systems in the D.C. area are on the verge of letting their zeal for equity and racial justice lead to consequences they may end up regretting. Fairfax County, which operates one of America’s best known and most esteemed “exam schools,” is may use a lottery, rather than test scores and other quality measures, for admissions. And Loudoun County is considering revising its rules for “professional conduct” by school staff to punish employees—teachers included—in truly Orwellian ways.
Commentary
High Achievers
The gifted kids are all right
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 above average ability for their age and grade level.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Many students with the potential to excel in STEM fields struggle in school
Students who have the kinds of talent scientists and engineers need to solve problems by visualizing how objects could be rotated, combined or changed in three dimensions often struggle at school.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, High Achievers
The “gifted gap” was already growing before the pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the inequities that have long existed in K–12 education system.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, High Achievers
Do programs for advanced learners work?
As I noted in a recent post, attitudes toward advanced education are cyclical. From gifted education to talent development programs, from honors classes to AP, we have experienced a largely positive stretch of media attention and state-level policy gains.
Commentary
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
Why not eliminate at least one year of high school entirely?
Michael J. Petrilli’s recent article “Half-Time High School may be just what students need” is compelling. Yet proposals to cut school time in half in grades nine through twelve may be only half right.
Commentary
High Achievers
Want more Doctor Faucis? Ensure that smart kids get educated, too.
Amid the plague that surrounds us, essential attention is properly getting paid to the education challenges of out-of-school kids: What can their parents, their schools, and their districts do to compensate for missed classroom time and the learning loss that’s bound to occur between now and the resumption of something resembling normalcy.
Event
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, High Achievers, Teachers & School Leaders
WEBINAR: How to Educate an American—A conversation with Michael J. Petrilli and Chester E. Finn Jr.
America’s schools have ceded significant ground to trendy nostrums and policy cure-alls that do little to adequately teach young people the skills and knowledge required to realize their full potential and emerge from school as fully-functioning citizens. The latest round of dire NAEP civics and U.S. history scores underscore our continuing failure on the citizenship front.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, High Achievers
AP versus the excellence gap
That K–12 education in the U.S. has long been plagued by “excellence gaps” is no secret, although the terminology may be just a decade old (and owes much to Jonathan Plucker and his colleagues).
Policy Brief
Accountability & Testing, High Achievers
The Role of Advanced Placement in Bridging Excellence Gaps
This report presents key findings from Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Andrew E. Scanlan, and published by Princeton University Press in 2019.