Chalkbeat

Education news. In context.

Chalkbeat

Matt Barnum

janus v. AFSCME

National
June 27, 2018

Supreme Court decision in Janus deals blow to nation’s teachers unions

The ruling means that states and school districts will no longer be able to require employees to pay negotiating fees — which could hurt membership and power.

false choice

National
June 25, 2018

Early school choice deadlines mean affluent parents often get first shot at coveted schools, new study shows

A new study finds that early registration deadlines for Boston’s school choice program tended to trip up black, Hispanic, and low-income families

a high-stakes evaluation

National
June 21, 2018

The Gates Foundation bet big on teacher evaluation. The report it commissioned explains how those efforts fell short.

New research commissioned by Gates finds scant evidence that evaluation changes accomplished what they were meant to: improve teacher quality or boost student learning.
National
June 20, 2018

Education’s gender pay gap

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! Matt Barnum, Sarah Darville, and intrepid intern Amanda Zhou here, working to help you make sense of efforts to improve…

mind the gap

National
June 15, 2018

In female-dominated education field, women still lag behind in pay, according to two new studies

Two new studies illustrate how even the education field — a female-dominated one where many salaries aren’t open to negotiation — isn’t immune to the gender pay gap.

charters on the hill

National
June 13, 2018

Virtual schools, open records, and claims about research — highlights from Congress’s look at charter schools

Charter schools got some extra attention in Washington, D.C. today in the form of a U.S. House hearing.
National
June 13, 2018

Taken over

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

hostile takeover

National
June 12, 2018

When states take over school districts, they say it’s about academics. This political scientist says it’s about race and power.

In a new book, “Takeover,” Rutgers political scientist Domingo Morel concludes that the prevailing logic for state takeovers is indeed tainted with racism.
National
June 6, 2018

The case for cutting class (sizes)

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

unintended benefit

National
June 6, 2018

Can lowering class size help integrate schools? Maybe, according to new research

A recent study suggests a concrete way that schools can attract and keep white families, while also boosting student achievement: lower class sizes.

devos watch

National
June 5, 2018

Asked again about school staff referring students to ICE, DeVos says ‘I don’t think they can’

Pressed to clarify her stance, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos initially avoided giving a clear answer.

can Uteach?

National
June 4, 2018

A teacher prep program that really works? This one is successfully minting math and science educators

New peer-reviewed research on the program, known as UTeach, shows that its teachers performed substantially better in the classroom than other teachers in Texas.
National
May 30, 2018

The ‘shadow education system’

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

unequal childhoods

National
May 30, 2018

The ‘shadow education system’: How wealthier students benefit from art, music, and theater over the summer while poor kids miss out

More affluent kids are about twice as likely to visit a museum, art gallery, or historical site, compared with peers from low-income families.

testing vouchers

National
May 29, 2018

D.C.’s private school voucher program hurt low-income students’ math test scores, according to federal study

Low-income students who used a voucher to attend a private school in Washington, D.C., continued to see substantially lower math test scores after two years in the program

feeling the heat

National
May 28, 2018

Higher temperatures equal lower test scores — study confirms that students learn less in overheated classrooms

A warm classroom is not conducive to learning, as any student trying to pay attention to a teacher’s lecture on a hot day can attest. There’s research to back that up.

classroom to congress

National
May 24, 2018

Can Ms. Hayes go to Washington? A national teacher of the year explains why she’s running for Congress

Jahana Hayes thinks what Washington, D.C. needs is a schoolteacher — one of the nation’s top teachers, in fact.
National
May 23, 2018

Let’s talk about jobs of the future

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

schools of the future

National
May 23, 2018

What does the ‘future of work’ mean for schools? Big claims leave educators with more questions than answers

Dig into common claims about our changing and you end up knee-deep in mixed messages and muddled statistics. What now?
National
May 16, 2018

It’s all about the money

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. We’re coming…

a new standard

National
May 14, 2018

Here’s what annoyed high school students most about the switch to Common Core

Group work. Also this: “Do you want me to learn it? Or do you want me to stare at the problem?”

exclusive

National
May 11, 2018

Two former staff members at Families for Excellent Schools planning a new pro-charter org

The group is being incubated at 50CAN, an education advocacy group with a presence in several states and where Andersen and Singh are currently employees.
National
May 9, 2018

Does ‘education reform’ now have five camps?

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

By the numbers

National
May 8, 2018

How long does a big-city superintendent last? Longer than you might think.

That three-year figure isn’t accurate — and it’s not clear it ever has been.

study says...

National
May 4, 2018

Free school lunch for all, meant to reduce stigma, may also keep students healthier

In 2015, two Obama cabinet secretaries encouraged schools to try a new way of handling free lunch: give it to everyone, no family paperwork required.
National
April 25, 2018

Teacher protests are marching on

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

vouching for vouchers

National
April 24, 2018

Louisiana vouchers have led to big drops in test scores, but they also might boost college enrollment

Students who won a school voucher in Louisiana to attend their top-ranked private high school were 6 percentage points more likely to enroll in college.

discipline paradox

National
April 20, 2018

Do charter schools suspend students more? It depends on how you look at the data.

Charters have a higher overall suspension rate than traditional public schools. But when you break down suspensions by race, charters actually post slightly lower rates.

exclusive

National
April 19, 2018

Walton memo recommends charter advocates do more to persuade Democrats and appease unions

An internal memo offers a playbook for charter advocates after a high-profile defeat in Massachusetts.

study says...

National
April 19, 2018

One big upside of career and tech programs? They push more kids to graduate

At these CTE schools, low-income students were 21 percentage points more likely to graduate than their similar peers at typical high schools.
National
April 18, 2018

How charter advocates lost a key fight

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

exclusive

National
Updated April 19, 2018

Internal memo offers candid postmortem of charter fight in Massachusetts

In 2015, charter school advocates had the wind at their backs as they set out to lift the state’s charter cap. A year later, their effort would end in humiliating defeat.

personalized persuasion

National
April 13, 2018

Don’t just talk about tech: How ‘personalized learning’ advocates are honing their messaging

Don’t call schools outdated and don’t focus on technology. That’s some of the advice advocates of “personalized learning” offer in a recent messaging document .

Fact check

National
April 13, 2018

Why the school spending graph Betsy DeVos is sharing doesn’t mean what she says it does

Simply pointing to two trends that coincide doesn't say anything about how one affects the other.

testing questions

National
April 10, 2018

Did computer testing muddle this year’s NAEP results? Testing group says no; others are unconvinced

A state education chief raised questions about the comparisons and even asked outside researchers to analyze the data before its official release.

testing takeaways

National
April 10, 2018

A decade of stagnation: Little progress on closely watched federal test, as big disparities persist

Scores on the exams known as the “nation’s report card” have barely budged over the last two years, new data show.

salary slump

National
April 3, 2018

As teachers across the country demand higher pay, here’s how much salaries have stalled — and why it matters for kids

The protesters are making the case that they’re not just fighting for themselves but for their students and state.

more school less crime

National
April 2, 2018

Four-day school weeks, a nationwide symptom of tight budgets, lead to more youth crime, study finds

A new study points to an unintended but perhaps unsurprising consequence of cutting the school week: a spike in juvenile crime.

digital drop

National
March 30, 2018

The national test of students’ progress has gone digital. A state leader is raising questions about what that means.

John White said he was concerned that this year’s switch from paper-and-pencil exams to computer-based exams might unfairly penalize some states.
National
March 28, 2018

Racism’s enduring legacy in schools

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

school cloning

National
March 28, 2018

Can top charters truly ‘replicate’? In Boston, yes — elsewhere, it’s not so clear

A new study finds that Boston charters maintained their high performance as they rapidly grew — perhaps because they closely emulated their original schools’ practices.

out-of-school factors

National
March 27, 2018

Food for thought: Students’ test scores rise a few weeks after families get food stamps

The timing of a family’s food stamp benefits affects their children’s academic performance, according to a new study.

research shows

National
March 23, 2018

Race, not just poverty, shapes who graduates in America — and other education lessons from a big new study

Black students are much less likely to graduate from high school and attend college than white students with the same family income.
National
March 21, 2018

Discipline and discrimination debates in D.C.

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

thrown for a loop

National
March 21, 2018

Elementary school teachers sometimes follow a class of students from year to year. New research suggests that’s a good idea.

A new study shows that students improve more on tests in their second year with the same teacher and the benefits are largest for students of color.

after douglas

National
March 20, 2018

Betsy DeVos avoids questions on discrimination as school safety debates reach Congress

DeVos is now set to consider the repeal of Obama-era discipline policies on the Trump administration’s school safety committee, which she will chair.

bias in the classroom

National
March 16, 2018

‘Disciplinarians first and teachers second’: Black male teachers say they face an extra burden

A number of black male teachers described a similar experience: colleagues assuming that they were better able to deal with behavioral issues among black boys.

new neighbors

National
March 16, 2018

An integration dilemma: School choice is pushing wealthy families to gentrify neighborhoods but avoid local schools

The ability to opt out of the neighborhood school increased the likelihood that a mostly black or Hispanic neighborhood would see an influx of wealthier residents.
National
March 14, 2018

Walking out, speaking up

Welcome to Chalkbeat’s national newsletter! We’re Matt Barnum and Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat’s national team. Our goal is to help you make sense of the messy,…

walkout

National
Updated March 14, 2018

What it looked like as students across America walked out of school to protest gun violence

The event was rare in its national scope.