Special education classifications varied across the country
The number of children assigned to special education nationwide declined last year for the fourth year in a row, according to a new report released this week by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, but the same wasn’t true in every state. Not only does the percentage of students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) – […]
For-profits and charters growing, private schools declining, report says
New education statistics were unveiled Thursday that show big changes in for-profit education, charter schools and more. Each year, the National Center for Education Statistics releases a report on the state of education that includes tons of new data. Some of the stories emerging from the report: For-profit colleges spend less than a third of […]
Which college degree pays the best money?
The value of a college degree is once again the subject of a study, this time by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, which recently released its report. This is at least the fourth study/survey on the broader issue of degrees released in the last couple of months. HechingerEd wrapped up the findings […]
More time in the classroom doesn’t always mean better scores
Our recent post on the long school days that some Chinese students put in got me wondering what kind of connection there might be between lots of classroom time and student performance on an international level. After all, Chinese students scored remarkably high on the latest PISA test. Turns out there really isn’t an ironclad […]
Is college a good investment?
The value and cost of a college diploma have been popular subjects in the last few months. No less than three surveys/studies have been released that look at the issue. Youth on Education The Associated Press and Viacom teamed up to do a phone survey of 18-24-year-olds for their thoughts on higher education. The survey […]
Of bosses, both good and bad
“All good bosses are alike; each bad boss is bad in his own way.” Tolstoy this isn’t. Nonetheless, it serves reasonably well as a distillation of recent research on leadership. Good bosses tend to do a lot of the same things: trust, respect, protect and empower their underlings; treat people equally (and well); communicate clearly; […]
How to expand a charter network
The charter-school movement faces a big problem: Advocates want it to keep expanding, but there’s a shortage of effective leaders. Although people have long bemoaned the pool of candidates to lead public schools, the problem has risen in prominence in the charter-school sector. Indeed, in reporting for a Washington Post article about charter school leadership […]
A day in the life of Chinese students
When bemoaning the United States’ comparatively low test scores on international assessments, some are quick to point to one factor that sets Chinese students apart from their American peers: the length of the school day. Unlike in America, where the length of the school day general stays constant from first grade through high school (if […]
Following the money to the country’s worst schools
Where are the lowest-performing schools in America? They tend to be in California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C. and Wisconsin (specifically, Milwaukee) — at least, as judged by where federal money is going. A federally funded study out this week by researchers at the American Institutes for Research digs into the data on the group of […]
The Hechinger Report celebrates its first birthday
A year ago today we officially launched The Hechinger Report, and so it seems as fitting a time as any to reflect on our work in the past 12 months. In May 2010, The Hechinger Report was a theory backed by confidence but not evidence. The theory was that news organizations—amid cutbacks and dramatic changes […]
