Episode Transcript Ki Sung: Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today I’m speaking to longtime MindShift contributor Debra Farmer Kris. She’s a child development expert and author of the book, “Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our…
Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A 2007 analysis by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students…
Even core federal datasets were not spared. The termination of a contract for EDFacts, which collects demographic data about students, was inconceivable. The data is essential for administering the highly regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federal test that tracks reading and math achievement. It is also critical for allocating $18 billion for…
Using Snyder’s Adult Hope Scale, Bryce and her team were able to measure pathway thinking, which helps people get from a to b, and agency thinking, which demonstrates a person’s belief in their ability to reach their goals. Bryce’s team found that increased hope outcomes were related to greater academic achievement, reduced stress and anxiety;…
What’s different for Aguilar compared to so many other people trying out this profession is that she is an apprentice — a training arrangement more commonly associated with welders, machinists and pipefitters. Apprentice programs for early childhood education have been in place in different parts of the country for at least a decade, but San…
As transitional kindergarten increased, slots for 3- and 4-year-olds in public and private pre-K centers decreased The red line shows the decline in child care center slots. The blue line shows enrollment in transitional kindergarten classes at public schools. Enrollment temporarily dipped when the pandemic erupted, but then recovered and continued to grow Source: Figure…
The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, recently published an analysis of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages…
I wanted to look at the relationship between family structure and student achievement by family income. Single-parent families are far more common in low-income communities and I didn’t want to conflate achievement gaps by income with achievement gaps by family structure. For example, 43 percent of low-income eighth graders live with only one parent compared…
A coalition of more than 100 congressional Democrats’ vision for education policy puts a big focus on getting students ready for the workforce—even if they decide not to attend college. The document, released Friday by the New Democrat Coalition, a group of center-left Democrats, calls for steps such as exposing young people to “opportunities in…
Today, we unveil the 2026 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the 200 university-based scholars in the United States who had the biggest impact on educational practice and policy last year. The list includes scholars who auto-qualified due to last year’s rankings, as well as nominees chosen by the 27-member selection committee. Without further ado,…
