Sound And Fury
Insights, Ideas, Opinions
What Chile Teaches Us About School Vouchers
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos supports vouchers that allow parents to use taxpayer funds to help…
Tuition Tax Credits: Boon or Boondoggle?
Earlier this summer, we published a blog post by Carl Davis of the Institute…
Op-Ed: The Weakness in D.C.’s Voucher Program
FutureEd Director Thomas Toch and Editorial Director Phyllis W. Jordan turned our report on…
A President’s Commitment to the Common Good
Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia shared the following letter with the university community at…
The Don’t Do It Depository
We have known for quite a while that schools engage in all manner of tricks…
Enemies, Idiots, and Outcomes in the Charter World
When it comes to measuring success in charter schools, there are two well-established camps. In…
Is Free College Best for Helping Low-Income Students?
From presidential candidates to state legislators, policymakers are talking about “free college” as a way…
Let’s Not Panic About Growth Mindset
Growth mindset, the belief that intelligence can be developed, has become a central tenet of…
“Fitting In” and Rising Graduation Rates at UT Austin
Senior Fellow Craig Wacker wrote this piece in July. We’re reprising it with the…
What’s at Stake for Schools in the Health Care Bill?
With the Senate agreeing to vote on a bill that could repeal Obamacare and restructure Medicaid, schools superintendents have…
Voucher Research Shows Decline, Rebound in Scores
Two studies released Monday confirm that students who use vouchers to move to private schools initially lose…
California Accountability: An ESSA Bellwether?
California has released a pilot version of its long-awaited school and district performance dashboard…
Tuition Tax Credits Let Private School Donors Turn a Profit
State and federal lawmakers interested in steering public funds toward private and religious schools have…
Between District and Charter: The Middle Path
School districts across the country are grappling with how to respond to their growing charter…
To Find the Value a Teacher Adds, Look Beyond Test Scores
A few years ago, a young economist at Northwestern University named Kirabo Jackson decided he…
What’s Next for the Common Core and Its Assessments?
Millions of dollars and thousands of development hours have been spent creating a…
Measuring Teacher Performance More Meaningfully
For most of public education’s history, teacher evaluation was an after-thought. Despite the centrality of…
Bursting the Bubbles in American Testing
They were designed to move American education into the next generation of assessment,…
How Did Chronic Absenteeism Become a Thing?
If you look at the accountability systems states are developing to meet federal requirements, you’ll…
Proficiency vs. Growth: Toward a Better Measure
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos famously stumbled in her confirmation hearing over a question about measuring…
Exploring The Human Side of Teacher Evaluation
Over the past decade we have learned a tremendous amount about measuring teaching effectiveness, but…
Being There Matters: Tracking Student & Teacher Attendance
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires all states to include at least one non-academic…
In Defense of the Common Core and Its Tests
As everyone in the education community knows only too well, the Common Core State Standards…