Explainers

Teaching

EXPLAINED: Why the ‘Science of Reading’ is Vital in Classrooms

Reading is a vital skill. Yet there are approximately 25 million children in the U.S. who cannot read proficiently, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In shutting...

Standards

Top Researchers Offer New Tool for Educational Recovery Efforts: Education Recovery Scorecard

On October 28, researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities jointly released the first nationally-comparable view of district-level learning loss during the pandemic. For 29 states and the...

EXPLAINED: How 'informal removal' hurts students with disabilities

For every parent who has heard, “You need to pick up your child now. They’re acting up,” there is a student with a disability being unfairly removed from their learning environment. It’s not...

Charter Schools

Explained: What Is the Federal Charter Schools Program?

In 1993, when charter schools were a new, bipartisan idea, President Bill Clinton proposed supporting them with federal funds. Two years later, Congress made it happen by putting $6 million into...

Explained: How to Run for Your Local School Board

(this article was updated March 13, 2024) School boards (in some states “school committees”) sit at the intersection of civic engagement, local politics, and community service. The school board is a...

COVID-19

Should Schools Offer More Remote Options?

As schools across the country return to in-person learning, parents are divided. We thought the pandemic was over and, suddenly, with the surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19, it’s not. We thought...