Educate

With the Hollywood depictions of frat bros chugging beer and hippies snacking on munchies, the starving college student might seem like a […]

In the United States, three million kids are suspended from school every year. Yet research shows suspension is often ineffective: it doesn’t […]

This week, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines to states and school districts for supporting homeless children. Over one […]

Stories all over the news have identified a new crisis in the United States: student debt. They say debt is […]

Picture the suburbs. Before Arcade Fire, there was Leave It to Beaver, the white picket fence, perfectly manicured lawns. You’re […]

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to reinstate federal scholarships for incarcerated prisoners. Through 67 different …

Rural schools in the United States face an abundance of problems: budget cuts, shrinking enrollments, teacher shortages, poor internet. Nowhere […]

Last week we started a series on rural schools by looking at Vermont – a state where more than half of public […]

School in Smalltown, USA is changing. Over the past several decades, rural schools have suffered as enrollment has dropped and […]

Nowadays, parents are always complaining that their kids are always on their cell phones. “No Snapchat at the dinner table!” they […]

Roughly 7 in 10 Americans still identify as part of the Christian faith. But the numbers have been declining over the past […]

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, US Secretary of Education John King made the case that teachers of color suffer from […]

Today, women are more likely to go to college than men. And they perform better academically once they get there. […]

Recently, more than 1400 educators from all 50 states and 30 different countries took the Shadow a Student Challenge. They […]

Typically, a student’s education is supposed like this: elementary, middle, high school. College. Job. The idea that high school can […]

Private tutoring for students can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars per year. But economist Jonathan Guryan co-authored a study that …

Before you devour this week’s episode, listen to last week’s American RadioWorks podcast “Decoding the Math Myth.” Really do it. […]

Politicians and economists say people need advanced math skills to be successful in the highly technical jobs of the 21st century. […]

We’re working on a documentary that explores the backlash against harsh school discipline policies across the country. In Minnesota, there’s […]

Before their very first day of kindergarten, white and affluent children already know more about science than children of other […]

Minnesota has a reputation for having good schools and strong standardized test scores. And that’s true for white children – […]

Research shows suspensions aren’t effective at changing kids’ behavior. And kids of color are more likely to get kicked out […]

The college application process has come under scrutiny in a new report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The […]

Nearly two-thirds of all students who enroll in community college are not “college-ready” in math and/or English. And of these, […]

Here’s some good news for students out there: if you want to memorize something, put your books down. Research shows […]

School voucher programs allow students to use public funds to pay for private school. This concept is very controversial. Supporters […]

Most teenagers are not learning about personal finance in school, according to an annual survey on financial literacy. Only five […]

College was once considered the path of upward mobility in this country. And, for many people, it still is. But […]

What does research say about how students learn best? Deans for Impact, a group of deans from schools of education around […]

A growing coalition of young people claims that student voices are largely missing from discussions of education reform. Andrew Brennen […]

In most modern work places employees are expected to be self-directed and also work collaboratively. But do conventional public schools do […]

Girls in the United States graduate from high school at higher rates than boys. This gap is much more pronounced […]

Colleges and universities are under increasing pressure from taxpayers to prove that graduates will be able to get jobs. According to […]

A few years ago, writer Jessica Lahey started noticing something troubling about many of her students: they were afraid of making mistakes […]

Policymakers and community leaders have started to question traditional forms of school discipline like detention, suspension and expulsion because …

After terrorist violence like the recent attacks on Paris by the group calling itself ISIS, some chose to blame an entire […]

Amy Scott first visited Oyler School in 2012 as the education correspondent for Marketplace. Oyler was a neighborhood school in Cincinnati, […]

Schools in Rockland County, N.Y. first started daily mindfulness lessons several years ago. Teachers noticed it was a way to […]

Last week on the podcast, we ran a story about “growth mindset,” a popular term in education that came from […]

“Growth mindset” is a term coined by Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck. It means that students who view intelligence as pliable – […]

It can be pricey to have kids involved in sports or other after-school activities. A recent report from American Express claims […]

Wikipedia has gotten a lot of flak over the years for being inaccurate and untrustworthy. But in 2010, Wikimedia, the […]

Back in the 1960s, the Supreme Court declared it was unconstitutional for public schools to sponsor organized prayer and bible […]

In November, a new social studies book about the Black Lives Matter movement will be available for middle school and […]

Head Start got its start 50 years ago. Our documentary, “Early Lessons,” by Emily Hanford, profiles the program that inspired […]

For the past two years the Obama administration has been working on a way to rate colleges based on their accessibility, […]

Sweet Briar College was about to close its doors after 114 years of operation. But it turns out it won’t […]

This fall we’ll be launching a new documentary about Historically Black Colleges and Universities, also known as HBCUs. They were […]

In 1998, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) published a statement on race. It concluded that race is a social idea, […]

African-American children represent about 14 percent of the school-aged population in the United States. But they make up 19 percent of […]

A lot of parents worry about whether their kids’ video game habits are harmful – especially when gaming gets in the way […]

For more than a century, Americans have been arguing about how to teach children about the birds and the bees […]

A few months ago Nancie Atwell received the $1-million-dollar Global Teacher Prize in recognition of her decades of teaching English and literacy …

Across the world, college students are urging their institutions to “divest” from fossil fuels. Divestment is short for dis-investment, a strategy …

Scientists have long thought of the brain as a “control center” for the body – a kind of computer that […]

There are places in the world where kids go to school not in classrooms, but in the woods. The Forest […]

There are 183 federally-run Bureau of Indian Education schools in the nation, and about a third of these are in poor condition. […]

A generation ago, if you walked into an American classroom, you’d likely find a veteran teacher who’d been on the […]

As we’ve reported, over the past decade many elite colleges have taken great strides to admit low-income students, but there […]

After Hurricane Katrina tens of thousands of children were forced to evacuate their homes and attend school in other cities and […]

Sweet Briar College in rural Virginia has been educating women for 114 years, but last month the college’s board announced that […]

We talked last week with Kevin Carey, author of “The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University […]

A lot of people in the higher education world are worried about the future. Rising costs, more competition for fewer applicants, the […]

Today older Americans are heading back to school in record numbers. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that students […]

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton announced last week that he wants to cut the amount of required state and federal testing […]

On last week’s podcast we talked about growing dissent among adjunct college instructors who claim they’re not getting compensated fairly […]

What would higher education look like without adjunct professors? That’s what a grass-roots group of academics is trying to prove by holding […]

Sometime in the next few weeks, Senate Republicans and Democrats will vote to reauthorize The No Child Left Behind Act […]

The Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case outlawed segregated schools. It took some time for America’s classrooms […]

African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, yet barely 4 percent of the nation’s doctors are black, and less than 2 percent are […]

Black males who drop out of high school have a 70 percent chance of going to prison by the time […]

President Barack Obama wants to make the first two years of community college free for what he calls “responsible students” who […]

Our guest this week has a message for high school seniors and their parents who are poring over the latest […]

Philanthropic foundations have been giving money to public education for years.  In 1993, the Annenberg Challenge put $500 million towards […]

In January 2014 nearly a hundred college presidents gathered at the White House for a summit on the rising cost […]

In 2011 the federal government required colleges and universities to publish “net price calculators” on their web sites. These tools […]

There’s a paradox in today’s job market: even though there are millions of people looking for work, employers say they […]

College sports are big business in the United States. Unpaid student athletes help bring in millions of dollars for top […]

Humanities professors at colleges and universities are re-thinking what it means to offer a PhD. The old model is proving […]

It’s no coincidence that college graduation rates are highest for the most selective schools. The Department of Education metric considers […]

What if  educators looked for strengths rather than weaknesses in students?  A mindset that focuses on assets and talents could change […]

In her new book, Building a Better Teacher, Elizabeth Green explores how teaching works. She says teachers’ skill and knowledge […]

Good teachers know that intelligence is achievable. That knowledge informs how they act in the classroom. In part two of […]

In The Teacher Wars, author Dana Goldstein explores the roots of today’s fights about education. From tenure to desegregation, teacher training to …

Author James Paul Gee says video games are problems to solve that come with their own tools. He challenges educators […]

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s new book, Aspiring Adults Adrift, follows 2009 college graduates into the world of work and […]

Long-predicted demographic changes mean a new kind of student is figuring out where to go to college, and how to […]

Even though public schools are supposed to provide free education to anyone who enrolls, their quality can vary from state […]

In May Stephen Smith was invited to be on a panel in Minneapolis that focused on the value of higher […]

A growing number of adjunct faculty at colleges and universities across the country are voting to unionize. Data from the […]

The government wants to collect data on America’s children. And that has parents across the country more than a little […]

The second of a series on what’s inside the Common Core State Standards. Last week we heard about the English […]

What do children need to know in school to be prepared for the future? That’s the question that drives a […]

Members of the military and their spouses face more challenges than traditional students when it comes to getting a college […]

Next fall, dozens of school districts nationwide will offer new computer coding classes. Advocates say computer programming is a fundamental […]

This spring, the Obama administration announced it was joining the effort to hold colleges and universities more accountable for sexual […]

A new report says middle-schoolers who get Bs and Cs are less likely to finish college than their peers who […]

For decades young people have been told that college is the path to prosperity. And research bears that out. But […]

In 2005, a group of philanthropists decided to fund a scholarship program for public high school graduates in Kalamazoo, Michigan. […]

Higher education has long been an engine of social mobility in this country. But today’s college choices may actually be […]

Spring is the time of year when college acceptance letters start landing in the mailboxes – and inboxes – of […]

A new majority of students going to college are low-income, Hispanic or African-American, and from the southern or western United […]

California schools have an average of 1,000 students for every guidance counselor. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio […]

A new international survey of 15-year-olds shows students in the United States are pretty good problem solvers. The Organization for […]

A new survey shows online K-12 schools under-performing brick-and-mortar schools. Recommendations include specialized teacher training for virtual …

Neuroscience research says teenagers don’t just like to sleep; they need to sleep. A new CDC study suggests early high […]

A new book says success for low-income college students should be a national priority. There’s no G.I. Bill or Higher […]

The College Board announced last week that it’s going to redesign the SAT exam by spring 2016. Will a new […]

Until the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and early ’70s, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) […]

A new paper says teachers shouldn’t be held accountable in a system that fails students. It suggests ways to take […]

Snow days have been plentiful in 2014. What impact do they have on student test scores? Guest: Joshua Goodman, Professor […]

About half of all college students in the United States go to community colleges and only a third of those […]

Teach for America wants to close the achievement gap by sending future leaders to some of the nation’s toughest schools. […]

A new study says Teach for American may be more costly than valuable. Guest: Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor of Education, […]

Many schools of education are awful, experts say. A new system for accrediting teaching colleges may add rigor and improve […]

Conservative and liberal activists across the country are speaking out against Common Core State Standards. But Michael Petrilli, who works […]

At Quest University in Canada, there are no departments, no majors and no faculty ranks. Classes are co-taught by a […]

Research shows the more words babies hear, the better they do in school. The achievement gap starts early; now so […]

Many educators say the best way to learn is by combining what you learn in school with real-world practice and […]

The cost of college keeps going up. But family earnings are staying the same. This is leading to an unsustainable […]

The results are in from academic tests of 15-year-olds in 65 countries and regions. PISA shows Finland slipping, Vietnam doing […]

At most colleges, a degree is based on “seat time.” But economists argue that the number of college grads is […]

It’s not just Advanced Placement any more. A new trend is for students taking college classes for college credit while […]

A new study finds that the emphasis on accountability since No Child Left Behind may be harming students, not helping […]

Grouping students by ability has become more prevalent since No Child Left Behind. But does academic “sorting” hurt low-performing students? […]

Is academic tracking good for our kids? New research shows gains in test scores when students are sorted by their […]

In November Texas plans to adopt new science textbooks which will be used in classrooms there for the next decade. […]

A new global survey shows that American adults scored below average in literacy and math skills, even though they’ve gone […]

In 1962, James Meredith launched a one-man crusade to integrate the University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss. Today, […]

Kids in some other countries learn more at school than American students do. A new book says that’s about what […]

Tight budgets and more emphasis on test scores mean fewer field trips. New research shows how and why field trips […]

The Ivy League isn’t on the radar for most poor students. Travis Reginal defied the odds, and is now a […]

Author of key report says students need both knowledge and know-how; content and the skills to apply it. Guest: Jim […]

Our guest says teachers must meet students where they are, even if that’s 40 different places. Guest: Carol Ann Tomlinson, […]

Kids are naturally curious, but not naturally good thinkers.How personalized learning may help them learn to think. Guest: Daniel Willingham, […]

A supporter-turned-critic of the Common Core says the new standards may hurt more than they help. Guest: Carol Burris, New […]

The Common Core State Standards will tell educators what to expect of students, but not what or how to teach. […]

Why do students in some states do better than students in others? A new report says the gap in state […]

The Core Knowledge Foundation says the Common Core State Standards will help schools know what to measure, but not necessarily […]

Physical activity is good for learning. Yet many schools cut back on gym class and even cracking down on fidgeting. […]

With tuition rising and debt mounting, author Jeffrey Selingo helps parents and students do the math for college. Guest: Jeffrey […]

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality says most graduate schools of education don’t prepare teachers for […]

How online tools may change classrooms today and forever. Guest: Heather Staker, Christensen Institute

Students are capable of excellent work. Some schools insist on it. Guest: Ron Berger, chief academic officer at Expeditionary Learning

How family income may cause disparities in school achievement, and what to do about it. Guest: Sean Reardon, professor of […]

A controversial principal with a compelling personal story on why tough love is what students need and teachers’ unions are […]

New research shows how classroom teachers may be able to combat the impact of stereotype threat and help close the […]

How one exemplary school district does professional development despite lean times. Long Beach, Calif. has become a national model by […]

Why college admissions should be colorblind. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on the latest affirmative action case. Last […]

Why being colorblind is a fine aspiration and a dangerous policy. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on another […]

A key analyst during the Atlanta cheating scandal tells us what can be done about cheating as Common Core standards […]

Pell Grants have been helping low-income students go to college for 50 years. A new report recommends changing the way […]

A new poll finds that American teachers lead the most satisfied lives, second only to physicians. What’s making our overworked, […]

There’s a talent war for computer engineers in Silicon Valley. That’s why MOOCs are getting in the head hunting game, […]

In January of 2014, the GED exam is going digital, and it’s going to be harder to pass. This adult […]

According to a new survey of employers, American colleges don’t produce enough qualified graduates for today’s workforce. Among the complaints: […]

As the nation braces for cuts to federal programs under sequestration, a top education reporter describes how this new era […]

If students learn about personal finance in grade school, they’ll be more responsible spenders as adults. So goes the thinking […]

A high school English teacher in Michigan says making videos of Shakespeare plays is better for students than memorizing facts […]

We met Tracy Edwards last year during our reporting at the YES Prep charter school network in Houston, Texas. Unlike […]

Most private schools give out aid packages based on merit, often trying to compete for students from wealthy families who […]

Mississippi legislators recently passed legislation that would allow charter schools in the state for the first time. In the Mississippi […]

For much of the 20th century, a Catholic education was often a relatively inexpensive, higher-quality alternative to inner-city public schools. […]

Teacher quality was in the news again last week with a PBS documentary about former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee […]

Veterans who enter the workforce often have a tough time translating their military experience to “resume-ready” skills. But a new […]

Oklahoma is one of the most politically conservative states in the nation and it’s also home to one of the […]

Ever heard of the self-employed college professor? Thanks to the efforts of the for-profit education company Straighter Line, some professors […]

According to the U.S. Department of Education, schools are actually safer than they’ve been in decades – which makes the […]

It turns out being popular in high school could actually be important later in life. New research from the University […]

In the 1960s “white flight” sent many middle-class families from the cities to suburbs out of fear that the quality […]

Since handwriting is becoming less important in modern life, teaching cursive is going out of style in American schools. But […]

For a long time it was assumed that a “digital divide” existed between rich kids and poor kids. But emerging […]

Florida governor Rick Scott is proposing a tiered pricing plan for the state’s colleges and universities that would cut tuition […]

The GED test was created to help returning World War Two veterans who hadn’t graduated from high school have an […]

From the 1960s to the 1980s the educational achievement gap between blacks and whites was shrinking. But around 1990 high […]

The University of Phoenix is closing 115 of its campuses and learning centers and laying off about 800 employees. This […]

When parents borrow money to pay for their children to go to college, they don’t often expect to be repaying […]

The Minerva Project is billing itself as the world’s first “elite” online university. Though still in development, its founder Ben […]

Last month, Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn. announced plans to make a dramatic cut in tuition for the 2013-2014 […]

Some educators believe that honing analytical writing skills will improve student learning across disciplines. In an article in this month’s […]

For years, educators have assumed that teaching students cognitive skills like reading and math was the key to preparing them […]

Since the Great Recession began in 2008 many college graduates and their families have been wondering: what good is an […]

Mississippi has highest rate of childhood poverty of any state in the country. Research suggests that high-quality early childhood education […]

A new report claims that both the best and the worst teachers are leaving urban school districts at similar rates. […]

This week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and the Workforce released a report that was very critical of […]

Massively Open Online Courses or MOOCS seem to be all the rage in elite higher education. Stanford, MIT, Harvard and […]

At a conference earlier this year, APM economics editor Chris Farrell spoke before a group of college admissions officers, enrollment […]

Only 9 percent of low-income students complete a bachelor’s degree by age 24. Why are so many students quitting college, […]

Do boys and girls learn differently? According to the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, boys and girls show significant […]

A prestigious medical school is trying an unusual way to teach young doctors to be more observant. ARW assistant producer […]

Coursera is a new consortium of top colleges and universities that have joined together to offer what’s known as Massively […]

As the cost of tuition increases faster than the rate of inflation, condensing a bachelor’s degree down to three years […]

The road to college starts for many kids as early as middle school as they decide what courses they’re going […]

Are college students learning less than they used to? Some recent, high-profile studies suggest the answer is yes. One reason […]

A new study finds that lower- and middle-class families whose housing value increased during the boom of the late ’90s […]

The average college student spends upwards of $1,000 a year on textbooks. The University of Minnesota recently announced a project […]

The University of Phoenix’s parent corporation, Apollo Group, recently bought Carnegie Learning – a company that developed something called a […]

The president of one of the nation’s largest philanthropies joins us to address recent critiques that foundations are playing too […]

A new research paper focuses on the so-called “advocacy philanthropy” of the two largest higher education grant-makers in this country. […]

This week we talk to a teacher who’s helping lead the “flipped” classroom movement. Instead of spending class time lecturing […]

The United States has the highest college dropout rate of any industrialized nation, at 40 percent. In a commentary for […]

One of the fundamental goals of modern education is to encourage upward social mobility. But some critics say that colleges […]

As most college students know, textbooks are not cheap. Now, champions of the “open access” movement are working to make […]

One in ten college students goes to a for-profit college. Schools like the University of Phoenix have been scrutinized for […]

President Barack Obama has been critical of the amount of time children and families spend playing video games when they […]

Why do some students drop out of college, while others persist? Researchers think it may have something to do with […]