Sputnik
Robert Slavin is the director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University and co-founder and chairman of the Success for All Foundation. Along with guest bloggers, he wrote about how educational policy can be informed by research and innovation and, in turn, promote development and evaluation of promising practices to improve outcomes for all children. This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
How Education Innovation Can Thrive at Scale
In a recent blog, Rick Hess explains "Why Education Innovation Tends to Crash and Burn." His analysis of why promising innovations so often flame out does a good job of describing the situation as it has been for many years. He notes that many innovations depend initially on exceptional funding, rare expertise, temporary enthusiasm, or one-off policies unlikely to be maintained for long, and discusses the problems of trying to innovate in entrenched institutions.
Education
Opinion
Topsy-Turvy Logic in House Proposal
In last Saturday's New York Times, Annie Lowrey wrote about a proposal in the House Appropriations Committee to cut funding for five of six Education and Health and Human Services programs that provide support to proven programs. One of these is Investing in Innovation (i3), which funds the development, validation, and scale up of proven and promising education programs. Education is not alone in the possibility of dramatic cuts to effective programs. Nurse-Family Partnerships have not only been found in rigorous evaluations to be effective in improving the development impoverished mothers and their children, it has also shown to reduce the mother's need for other government services including welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid. Despite saving the government more than the program's cost, Nurse Family Partnerships are on the chopping block too. The House cuts are in contrast to the proposals put forward in the Senate in recent weeks to maintain i3 and other evidence-based programs.
Education
Opinion
Twilight of Science?
NOTE: This is a guest post by Steve Fleischman, deputy executive officer at Education Northwest, a nonprofit headquartered in Portland, Ore., that conducts research, evaluation, technical assistance, training, and strategic communications activities to promote evidence-informed education policy and practice.
Education
Opinion
Voices for Evidence in Education
This blog hosts occasional guests who share a deep commitment to advancing education innovation with evidence. Here are a few recent contributions that you may have missed:
Education
Opinion
Building a Better System of Special Education
Once upon a time, there was a train company that was experiencing a lot of accidents. The company commissioned an investigation which revealed that when accidents happened, damage was usually sustained to the last car in the train. As a result, the company sent out a memo to all station masters: Before each train left the station, the last car was to be removed.
Education
Opinion
No More Excuses: We Can Get All Children Reading
Everyone reading this blog knows how important it is that every child become a confident, skilled, and motivated reader. The latest NAEP results, released this month, remind us that there are far too many children who do not read well, that disadvantaged and minority children are overrepresented among poor readers, and that the inequalities in academic outcomes by race and class--our most serious social as well as educational problem--begins with reading inequalities in the early grades. Everyone knows that children who don't read well will incur huge expenses over time in remediation, special education, repeated grades, and ultimately delinquency, dropout, and unemployment.
Education
Opinion
What We Can and Cannot Learn From International Comparisons
In education reform circles, people often express deep concerns about the mediocre performance of American students on international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS. There is good reason to be concerned that U.S. students score behind peer nations such as Finland, Netherlands, and Canada, and the international comparisons do provide a useful benchmark to tell us how our students are doing overall. However, while we can learn from the practices of other countries with high scores, we also need to maintain perspective.
Education
Opinion
Stop the Pendulum, I Want to Get Off
The best argument for emphasizing evidence in educational policy and practice is what happens when evidence plays no role: Practice and policy swing like a pendulum from one enthusiasm to the opposite, and then back again, but no progress is made.
Education
Opinion
Weekend Reading: November 3, 2011
From time to time, I will use this space to share research I am reading. Listing it here should not be interpreted as an endorsement, but as worthwhile reading. I hope you find this to be a useful resource and I welcome your own analysis or insights
Education
Opinion
NAEP Scores Flat, Sun Rises Again
Yesterday's release of the NAEP scores revealed that, as a nation, we have made little progress in the past 20 years in helping our 4th graders read on grade level. Now, writing about flat NAEP scores is like writing about the sun rising. There is nothing new or exciting about this news. We can predict the cycles of the sun, plan for it, react to it, but we cannot impact whether the sun will rise every day. We can impact reading outcomes for 4th graders, as a nation, we have so far failed to do so.
Education
Opinion
Do Struggling Charter Schools Deserve a Second Chance?
Last week, I wrote about the "Struggling Schools and the Problem with the 'Shut It Down' Mentality." The post seemed to strike a chord, so I would like to encourage my readers to consider the same framework for struggling charter schools. Most people who follow research on charter schools would agree that there is little evidence that, on average, students in charter schools gain any more than similar children in non-charters. Charter advocates admit this to be true, but point to positive effects documented for outstanding charter networks, such as KIPP, and often vow to "weed out" failing charters from their ranks.
Education
Opinion
Is Whole School Reform Poised for a Comeback in ESEA?
Whole school (or comprehensive) reform models are making a remarkable comeback in policy and practice. Popular in the 1990's, with as many as 6,000 schools using whole-school models by 2001, the Bush administration tried to eliminate the approach in the 2000s, despite strong positive effects in evaluations of several of the most popular models.
Education
Opinion
Struggling Schools and the Problem with the "Shut It Down" Mentality
One of the solutions often proposed for schools in which students perform poorly is closing down the school. It's one of the four options required for schools to receive School Improvement Grants in the current administration and has been an option for consistently low-achieving schools under No Child Left Behind. The Senate HELP Committee's proposal for reauthorizing ESEA maintains school closure among seven options for persistently low-achieving schools.
Education
Opinion
What Else Could We Do With $800 Million?
Tutor students after class?
No! says every lad and lass
No! says every lad and lass