The Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Thomas B. Fordham Institute is America's leading education reform think tank.

The right contract makes ed tech prove itself

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 14:23

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. During the 2024–25 school year, a large urban school district serving predominantly students of color from low-income families began using an AI tutoring intervention for early literacy. Students in grades two to four who had scored below proficient on the state assessment in… Read More

Every digital tool in schools should have to earn its place

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 14:23

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. More than a decade ago, when I served as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, we were already grappling with how technology could transform teaching and learning. I believed then, as I do now, that technology’s greatest potential lies not in the devices themselves, but in what they… Read More

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 10.30.26

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 13:15

Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full. Cleveland’s mayor (not) on the record This is a weird one. Signal Cleveland is aiming to document for the record any quotes connecting Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to charter schools and the charter sector. Why? No clue. But the reason this qualifies as “news you can use” is because the only direct quote they can pin on him—“The best thing we can do is make CMSD the best damn school district so those… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/30/26—National bites

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 10:22

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. With a lack of local news to end the week, let’s opt instead for two national stories with Ohio ties. First up is a very long EdWeek piece extolling the virtues of Lakota Local Schools’ Cyber Academy. This is, at its core, a three-course sequence on cybersecurity. We get a lot of talk about the value of and copious abundance of work in the field, but because the piece is SO detailed, we… Read More

What we’re reading: October 30, 2026

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 09:00

WHAT WE’RE READING Politicians across the political spectrum are finding common ground in supporting limits on technology in schools. Lily Altavena takes us around the country to see how midterm candidates are vying to claim leadership on the topic. EXTRA CREDIT: Alina Adams, “Will NYC Try an Integration Plan That Failed Spectacularly in San Francisco?” Alli Aldis, “Gifted, Talented, and Switching Schools” Lamar Alexander and Phil Bredesen, “Governors Have an Opportunity to Give Civics… Read More

Cheers and Jeers: October 30, 2026

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 09:00

CHEERS Elizabeth Heubeck interviews NewMexicoKidsCAN’s Amanda Aragon Bernabe, who shares why a parent notification requirement in New Mexico’s literacy reform law can help adults work together to support struggling readers. JEERS LAUSD is considered by state financial experts to be at “high risk” for insolvency. Howard Blume has the details: The state’s school Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team has concluded that the poor financial outlook has been brought on by increased hiring… Read More

Nikole Hannah-Jones blames segregation. A parent who was there blames a system that stopped expecting anything of children.

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 07:20

“Girls, I want to set your expectations now that we are moving to New York City. The caliber of kids in your class is going to be much higher, your homework and tests are going to be more challenging, and you can’t expect to be one of the best students anymore. And the truth is, I’m really excited about that for you.” We were driving into the city to meet our moving truck, from rural Ohio. For the past two years they had attended a small, private Christian school with dedicated and exceptional… Read More

Data science shouldn’t be confined to the math classroom

Fri, 10/30/2026 - 00:01

Data are everywhere. From political polling on the nightly news to tracking airline prices and deciding when to lock in a mortgage rate, our lives are shaped by data. Data science, the art of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to find patterns, answer questions, and make better decisions, is no longer a specialized technical skill. It is now a basic form of social and financial literacy. Yet in most schools, data science is handed off to the math department, as if its relevance… Read More

Tending the ed tech ecosystem

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 10:37

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. In the not-so-distant past, public school elementary students in your town used shared Chromebooks on a portable cart. Later, each of those students received their own Chromebook in a well-funded push to make educational apps more accessible. Now, parents—like my own… Read More

Hey, states: You can just do things

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 00:06

“You can just do things” is one of those memes floating around the internet, plus the name of two recent books, including one by lawyer-turned-professional poker player-turned-biotech entrepreneur Cate Hall. Another word for it is “agency.” Nike would say “Just do it.” Or as opinion columnist Matt Yglesias argues, don’t just admire a problem, do something to fix it. It’s on my mind because of the current enthusiasm for muscular state action around teaching and learning. For decades, many of us… Read More

What other states can learn from Alabama’s literacy gains

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 00:05

No two states are exactly alike when it comes to K–12 education. Yet, to make progress, state leaders have little choice but to learn from one another’s experiences. Hence our continued interest in the “Southern Surge,” a modest bright spot in an otherwise grim K–12 education landscape, and our decision to report on recent developments in Alabama. For the past decade, a handful of Southern states have been on an upward academic trajectory (though, as usual, the data are noisy). The most… Read More

Are American schools really resegregating?

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 00:03

Nikole Hannah-Jones set the education world on fire with her essay last month reflecting on the school choices she made for her daughter. I’ve already written about how she missed some warning signs about her daughter’s struggles in math, but today I want to dig in on another part of the story. Namely, I want to pick apart a set of claims made by Hannah-Jones and This American Life producer Chana Joffe-Walt. Several times in her interview with Hannah-Jones, Joffe-Walt makes a reference to how… Read More

Positive signs of post-Covid academic recovery

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 00:02

The newest test data from NWEA MAP show several unmistakably positive signs of academic recovery from post-Covid lows. But they must be understood in context—between subjects, across grade levels, and among different groups of students—because not all the signs are good and much work remains to be done before pandemic education disruptions are fully remediated. The latest trend analysis of MAP Growth assessment data extends through spring 2026 testing in grades K–8 in both reading and math. It… Read More

Measuring future teacher potential

Thu, 10/29/2026 - 00:01

The labor market for new college graduates appears unsteady, which may be good news for schools: More new graduates consider teaching when hiring in other fields slows down. Plus, “care economy” jobs like teaching seem at least somewhat insulated from automation in the age of AI. If interest in teaching picks up, how can teacher-preparation programs help develop and identify strong candidates, and what should hiring managers look for in potential new educators? In a new CALDER working paper,… Read More

Free readers, free people: What schools should protect

Wed, 10/28/2026 - 09:22

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. In his 1845 Narrative, Frederick Douglass recalls the day his enslaver caught his own wife teaching Douglass to read and told her it would “forever unfit him to be a slave.” From then on, Douglass “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.” That freedom starts with… Read More

Educator and student perspectives on career-connected learning and what they mean for Ohio

Wed, 10/28/2026 - 09:12

A few months ago, the nonpartisan research organization RAND released a report focused on career-connected learning in K–12 public schools. To determine how well schools are preparing students for what comes after graduation, researchers leveraged a trio of nationally representative surveys conducted during the 2025–26 school year. Survey questions focused on how district and school leaders structure career-connected learning and how high schoolers describe their experiences. Although the… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/28/26—Intentions

Wed, 10/28/2026 - 09:05

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. St. Francis DeSales, a Toledo Catholic school currently serving boys in grades 7-12, announced this week that it will be expanding down to include grade 6 and will create a new middle school separate from high school at the same time. “A successful middle-school experience is about more than preparing students academically for high school,” said school principal John Hall. “It’s about… Read More

Studying the Southern Surge: How Alabama Beat the Odds in Reading

Wed, 10/28/2026 - 00:00

Foreword By Meredith Coffey and David Griffith No two states are exactly alike when it comes to K–12 education. Yet, to make progress, state leaders have little choice but to learn from one another’s experiences. Hence our continued interest in the “Southern Surge,” a modest bright spot in an otherwise grim K–12 education landscape, and our decision to report on recent developments in Alabama. For the past decade, a handful of Southern states have been on an upward academic trajectory (… Read More

Every school already has a technology policy. Student learning should guide it.

Tue, 10/27/2026 - 14:15

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. Whether or not anyone wrote it down, every school makes technology policy. Where states and districts haven’t set clear rules, teachers and principals make those decisions themselves, one app at a time, while fielding parent pushback, tight budgets, nonstop vendor marketing… Read More

Subsidiarity as a guiding ed-tech principle

Tue, 10/27/2026 - 14:15

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. The whole world has stretched at the seams, changing its shape to fit innumerable new aspects of life brought by digital technology. Every high schooler today was born after the advent of the iPhone. The well-worn debate about whether teachers should be the “sage on the… Read More