NEPC’s latest book demonstrates how schools throughout the nation are implementing equity-based approaches, even when broader systemic forces do not support their reforms. The book focuses on Schools of Opportunity honored for their focus on equity and excellence.
BOULDER, CO (January 31, 2023)—A recent Badger Institute report reviews the current early care and education (ECE) landscape and offers a profile of the childcare system in Wisconsin. Yet despite drawing valuable attention to the policy issues of ECE, the report ultimately fails to support its recommendations.
A report presents data on early care and education trends in Wisconsin and concludes that government regulations have had the effects of limiting supply, decreasing parental choice in providers, and increasing costs. The report recommends increasing regulatory freedom, consolidating state agencies, and increasing parental rights over use of government childcare subsidies. The report should be applauded for continuing to spotlight the need for quality childcare and education.
NEPC mailings concerning the mischaracterization of school choice research, troubling findings about school finance and high school education, and a popular teaching approach caught in the crossfire of efforts to undermine Critical Race Theory are among the topics that resonated most with our audience in 2022.
BOULDER, CO (January 24, 2023)—In one of the more unusual reports NEPC has ever reviewed, Heritage Foundation authors recently argued for school-choice deregulation by comparing the amount of “wokeness” terminology in parent/student handbooks in U.S. charter schools with the level of charter school regulation in their states.
A Heritage Foundation report compares the amount of “wokeness” terminology in parent/student handbooks in charter schools with the level of charter school regulation in their states, and concludes that while charters represent a safe space away from “woke indoctrination” in public schools, further deregulation and less bureaucracy will allow that sector to truly respond to parent desires to avoid “leftist” curriculum. While apparently intended to tap into current turmoil, the report has at least five significant weaknesses.
University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews David Knight about K-12 school finance policy and practice.
BOULDER, CO (January 19, 2023) – In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, Christopher Saldaña discusses recent developments in K-12 school finance policy and practice with David Knight, University of Washington College of Education professor of education finance and policy.
BOULDER, CO (January 17, 2023) – A recent report from the Progressive Policy Institute highlights the emergence of widespread teacher staffing shortages. By describing teacher autonomy as a panacea for reversing the problem, however, the report oversimplifies the issue.
The Progressive Policy Institute published a report highlighting the emergence of widespread teacher staffing shortages. It describes contemporary “autonomous” school initiatives, which all fall under the umbrella of positioning teachers with greater decision-making responsibilities and authority. It then suggests that such initiatives are effective strategies to remedy shortages because increased autonomy produces greater job satisfaction for teachers.
BOULDER, CO (December 15, 2022) – In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, Christopher Saldaña interviews Derek Black, professor of law and the Ernest F.
University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Derek Black about the role of the law and litigation in K-12 education policy.
An NSF-funded project uses syncretic learning that incorporates real world and school-based practices to teach middle school students to tell stories with data.
A recent study delves into the research evidence K-12 school and district leaders find useful and how they use their evidence in their work.
A new survey of U.S. high school principals demonstrates how partisan conflict is making it challenging for schools to fulfill their mission of preparing students for participation in our diverse democracy.
BOULDER, CO (December 1, 2022)—A recent report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute examines academic outcomes in Ohio’s nonprofit and for-profit charter schools. It also explores whether differences in contracted services in for-profits appear to correlate with differences in their outcomes.
A Thomas B. Fordham Institute report examines academic outcomes in Ohio’s nonprofit and for-profit charter schools; in addition, it explores whether differences in contracted services in for-profits appear to correlate with differences in their outcomes. Despite the report's claims, it offers little evidence to remove skepticism from the debate over for-profit status. In addition, the report is limited in its focus on only Ohio, which has substantially more transparency than many states require for school choice options.
A new study suggests that as a state’s percentage of low-income students and students of color increases, citizens and lawmakers grow more hesitant to fund K-12 schools in a progressive manner that accounts for the higher costs of educating children living in poverty.
A Buckeye Institute report recommends sweeping policy reforms in response to COVID-19 academic disruptions and what the report asserts to be declining confidence in public schools. The report recommends the state rapidly expand three types of school choice or voucher-like policies—education savings accounts, public school choice, and tax credits for private school scholarship programs—combined with fiscal transparency.
University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews David Garcia about using research to engage in education policy.
BOULDER, CO (November 17, 2022) – In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, Christopher Saldaña interviews Arizona State University education policy professor David Garcia about his book, Teach Truth to Power: How to Engage in Education Policy.
Today’s youth suffer through challenges on multiple fronts. Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and its related social and educational fallout, they've experienced trauma from increasingly frequent school and community violence, homelessness, family separation related to immigration, and sustained child poverty. Exposure to these and other traumas triggers health, psychological, social-emotional, behavioral, and educational harms.
As publicly funded schools of choice operated by private entities, charter schools differ from traditional public schools in that they have more operational autonomy, their teachers are not public employees, and they are operated by nonprofit or for-profit private entities under renewable contracts. The main sense in which they are public is that they are funded by taxpayer dollars.
A report from Bellwether details what the authors call, “assembly-based education,” a hypothetical ecosystem that removes schools as a central education component. Instead, the plan proposes giving families the ability and funding to choose among varied learning opportunities. The approach is presented as helping to remove some barriers for lower-income families and to facilitate new communities based on shared interests rather than geography. The report also argues that the approach is timely and practical, pointing to the recent growth of school choice and supplemental learning.
BOULDER, CO (November 8, 2022)—A report from Bellwether details what its authors call “assembly-based education,” a concept described as a hypothetical ecosystem that removes schools as a central education component. A review of the report exposes this concept as unworkable outside of a miraculous private marketplace, and thus a shortsighted attempt to invalidate public schools.
A new critical policy analysis tabulates racial disparities in early childhood education quality and funding, tracing them back to historical inequities.
Six ways teacher education programs can more effectively prepare graduates to use technology in the classroom.
A new study catalogues and names the marketing messages that schools of choice use to advertise to families in a neighborhood with high concentrations of emerging bilinguals.
BOULDER, CO (October 20, 2022) – In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Sonya Douglass about racial justice in K-12 public schools. Douglass is a professor of education leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University and the founding director of the Black Education Research Center (BERC).
University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Sonya Douglass about schools' efforts and capacity to promote racial justice in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BOULDER, CO (October 18, 2022)—In response to unsafe conditions and school closures, families across the U.S. experimented early in the COVID-19 pandemic with new educational models. Two recent publications from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) describe two related strategies that exemplify such experimentation: microschools and learning pods. However, a review recommends that neither report should be used to guide policy and practice.
Families across the U.S. experimented during the COVID-19 pandemic with new educational models in response to school closures. This review examines the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s two recent reports on two related strategies that exemplify such experimentation: microschools and learning pods. The first report analyzes engagement patterns and success rates of a digital platform used at one microschool in Nevada. The second report praises learning pods’ staffing features and argues that these approaches might be adopted in traditional schools.
BOULDER, CO (October 11, 2022) – The last several years have been trying for students, communities, and schools. States and local educational agencies have been working to meet the significant health and educational needs of students and to address the vast racial and socioeconomic inequities that have been heightened by the pandemic. Success in the efforts depends on a responsive, strong, and effective federal role in education.
Culturally relevant teaching, an approach supported by a robust research base, is caught up in the critical race theory political debate.
Efforts to boost teacher morale that focus on actions of individual educators may be insufficient because they do not address the role of education policy in teacher well-being and stress.
Evaluations of teacher preparation programs do not focus sufficiently on equity. A new report offers guidelines for change.
NEPC Researcher and University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Richard Ingersoll and Tuan Nguyen about teacher shortages.
BOULDER, CO (September 20, 2022) – In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, NEPC Researcher and University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Richard Ingersoll and Tuan Nguyen about teacher shortages.
A recent podcast provides an overview of tracking—an aspect of our educational system so pervasive that it sometimes goes unnoticed.
BOULDER, CO (September 13, 2022) – How students learn to read and how reading is best taught are often the focus of media, public, and political criticism. In a new NEPC policy brief, The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach to Reading Instruction, Paul Thomas of Furman University explores the controversial history of the reading reform movement.