According to the three authors of this article, the 2014 "EdNext" poll yields four especially important new findings: (1) Opinion with respect to the Common Core has yet to coalesce. The idea of a common set of standards across the country has wide appeal, and the Common Core itself still commands the support of a majority of the public.…

Research has been showing that the most important development in K-12 education over the past decade has been the emergence of a growing number of urban schools that have been convincingly shown to have dramatic positive effects on the achievement of disadvantaged students. Those with the strongest evidence of success are oversubscribed charter…

Scholars have attempted to discern the effects of competition between the public and private education sectors within the United States and in other countries, but no study has attempted to measure systematically the causal impact of competition by looking at variation across countries. Countries where more people choose to invest in private…

Most people express strong opinions about public education. Only a few know the basic facts about the public schools: (1) how much they spend; (2) how well teachers are paid; and (3) what schools can and cannot do. What happens when the public learns the facts about schools and deliberates responsibly about public education? A series of…

This article presents the findings from the 2009 "Education Next" and Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) survey which asks if information changes minds about school reform. The authors fielded the survey in March of 2009, when newly elected president Barack Obama enjoyed public approval ratings above 60 percent. The timing…

In the contentious world of education politics, the need to spend more on public schools stands out as a rare point of agreement. The authors' recent national survey of American adults ("What Americans Think about Their Schools," Fall 2007) found that those who support increased spending on public schools in their district outnumber those who want…

Americans clearly have had their fill of a sluggish economy and an unpopular war. Their frustration now may also extend to public education. This article presents the results of the second annual national survey of U.S. adults conducted under the auspices of "Education Next" and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard…

Americans both care about their schools and want them to improve. Though adults give the nation's public schools only mediocre grades, they are willing to invest more money in public education and they are reasonably confident that doing so will improve student learning. They are also open to a host of school reforms ranging from high-stakes…

Four decades after collective bargaining came to public education, school boards and the superintendents they hire still routinely blame teacher unions for causing massive inefficiencies, stifling innovation, and preventing change designed to promote student learning. "Our hands are tied," school boards commonly complain when school budgets are…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal school-accountability law, is widely held to have accomplished one good thing: require states to publish test-score results in math and reading for each school in grades 3 through 8 and again in grade 10. The results appear to be telling parents whether their child's school is doing a better job than the…

It is not unusual for interest groups to issue reports that further their own political agendas--and to muddle the facts in the process. For this reason, newspapers generally ignore them, treat them with great skepticism, or make sure they properly vet the research with independent observers. Not so in the case of the study of charter schools…

Uses student scores on Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 18 countries to examine the relationship between class size and student achievement. Finds that with the exception of two countries--Greece and Iceland--reduction in smaller class had no effect on test scores. Suggests that class-size effect is related to teacher…