-
Slowdown in health care expenses is saving school districts billions
Thirteen years ago this month, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. In theory, the ACA shouldn’t have affected public school districts all that much. Most already offered health care plans that met the ACA’s requirements to at least cover 10 “essential benefits,” and a “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost plans that...
By Chad Aldeman | March 27, 2024
-
Analysis: Wrong ideas about teacher pay, happiness may keep students from the profession
Teachers generally like teaching. They stay in their chosen profession about as long as accountants or social workers stay in theirs. Teachers may not get rich, but they live comfortably middle-class lives. Plus, teachers get to retire a couple of years earlier than other workers. Those are some of the positive narratives that policymakers need...
By Chad Aldeman | February 22, 2024
-
Emergency-hired teachers do just as well as those who go through normal training
When K-12 schools closed their doors for in-person instruction in spring 2020, it had a variety of negative effects on students and teachers. It also shut off the training opportunities for future educators. In response, states instituted a variety of short-term waivers allowing candidates to teach without fulfilling their normal requirements. Those policies helped candidates...
By Chad Aldeman | January 10, 2024
-
The 50 very different states of American public education
There is not one American public education system; the U.S. is a collection of 50 states, and those states have chosen to deliver public education using very different approaches. These choices manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including how much money states provide for their public schools, how many people work in those schools...
By Chad Aldeman | November 22, 2023
Schools After COVID: 6 Ways For Districts to Better Engage Parents Amid Concerns About COVID Learning Loss
74 Interview: Why Social Media is Being Blamed for the Youth Suicide Crisis
Thousands of Schools at Risk of Closing Due to Enrollment Loss
Free New AI Tool to Help Americans Search and Compare Student Test Scores Across All 50 States
-
Analysis: Schools could lose 136,000 teaching jobs when federal COVID funds run out
Objectively speaking, it’s a weird time to be talking about layoffs in schools. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021 had the fewest layoffs in public education in the last two decades. Last year was just a bit higher, and so far 2023 is tracking about the same. There are still pockets of layoffs due to...
By Chad Aldeman | November 2, 2023
-
Where do new teachers come from? It’s complicated. Policymakers need to know it
If I asked you to picture a new teacher, you might imagine someone just out of college who recently finished student-teaching and now, at age 22 or 23, is starting a full-time job in a district nearby. That is one common path, but it’s far from the only one. In fact, teachers follow a wide...
By Chad Aldeman | September 6, 2023
-
Opinion: Why the science of reading is right for my young learner
I’m writing this for all the parents out there: Don’t leave your child’s reading success to chance. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was one of those parents. Sure, my wife and I read to our son every night, and we had plenty of books, newspapers and magazines around the house. Our local public...
By Chad Aldeman | July 17, 2023
-
Analysis: Schools have been adding teachers even as they serve fewer students, federal data show
Just before the winter holidays, the National Center for Education Statistics released new data on school staffing in the 2021-22 academic year. The data are provisional, but they represent the best look yet at how school staffing levels have changed over the course of the pandemic. As I forecast in September, the new data show that schools have been...
By Chad Aldeman | February 2, 2023
-
Analysis: On a per-student basis, school staffing levels are hitting all-time highs
It’s a weird time to be having a national conversation about teacher shortages. Thanks in part to the surge of federal relief funds, schools have ambitious hiring plans — but they have been unable to bring on as many people as they would like. As of last month, job openings remain elevated well above normal levels. And yet,...
By Chad Aldeman | September 21, 2022
-
Education researcher creates free summer reading program for parents
Reading is freedom. It opens up the world. In my day job as an education researcher, I know that too many kids never learn to read well. Kids who don’t learn to read fluently by 3rd grade will struggle as the material gets more complex. That fact hit home this spring when I noticed my 8-year-old son had...
By Chad Aldeman | July 18, 2022