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Chad Aldeman

Chad Aldeman is a regular columnist for The 74. He writes about school finance, state assessments and accountability, and the teacher labor market. He is also the founder of Read Not Guess, a program to help parents teach their children to read

Big Improvements Require Big Changes: Close Bad Schools and Expand Good Ones

Chad Aldeman

In Dozens of Districts, Teachers Can’t Afford to Live Near Their Schools

Chad Aldeman

Teacher Turnover Spiked During COVID. But It’s Now Fallen for 2 Years in a Row

Chad Aldeman

Interactive: School Spending vs. Teacher Pay — See Trends in 8,900 Districts

Chad Aldeman

The Every Student Succeeds Act Turns 10 This Year. Why I Won’t Be Celebrating

Chad Aldeman

Why Steubenville, Ohio, Might Be the Best School District in America

Chad Aldeman

12 Truths and No Lies: Guiding Principles for the Future of American Education

Chad Aldeman

5 Years Later: My Pandemic Predictions on Learning Loss, Disengagement and More

Chad Aldeman

Should Trump Be Taken Literally or Seriously on Closing Education Department?

Chad Aldeman

There Really Was a ‘Mississippi Miracle’ in Reading. States Should Learn From It

Chad Aldeman

Interactive: Data From 9,500 Districts Finds Even More Staff and Fewer Students

Chad Aldeman

Which States Have the Fastest-Growing Achievement Gaps in 8th-Grade Math?

Chad Aldeman

Across All Ages & Demographics, Test Results Show Americans Are Getting Dumber

Chad Aldeman

Public Schools Added 121,000 Employees in 2024 — Even as They Served Fewer Kids

Chad Aldeman

The New Social Security ‘Fairness’ Act Is Neither Fair Nor Just

Chad Aldeman

40% of Chicago Teachers Are Chronically Absent. Those Gaps Carry Real Costs

Chad Aldeman

6-Year-Olds in England Get a Phonics Check. American Kids Should Get One, Too

Chad Aldeman

Are Students Gaining Ground in Math and Reading? Not Very Much …

Chad Aldeman

Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Math?

Chad Aldeman

School Closures Are Way Down, but Delaying These Hard Choices Makes Things Worse

Chad Aldeman

Chicago Is Running Out of Money. Its Teachers Union Wants 9% Raises Anyway

Chad Aldeman

Why Congress Should Extend Social Security to All Teachers

Chad Aldeman

Chicago Mayor’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Debt Plan for the District

Chad Aldeman

Virginia’s New Accountability System Looks to Raise the Bar on Schools

Chad Aldeman

Kids in Poverty Often Lag in Reading. In St. Louis, They’re Even Further Behind

Chad Aldeman

ESSER Post-Mortem: How Did Districts Spend $190B in Federal Funds? Did It Work?

Chad Aldeman

How Team-Based Teaching Can Support Student Learning and Reduce Teacher Burnout

Chad Aldeman

Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?

Chad Aldeman

Does More Money Matter to Teachers? It’s Not a Simple Yes or No Question

Chad Aldeman

Hey, Students: Want a Good Job? Become a Teacher

Chad Aldeman

California Lost 420K Public School Kids in 4 Years — & May Drop 1M More by 2031

Chad Aldeman

No Textbooks, Times Tables or Spelling Tests: Things My 6th Grader Didn’t Learn

Chad Aldeman

Is Public Education Actually Public? And How Important Is It for Democracy?

Chad Aldeman

Louisiana Pilot Program Tests New Kind of Reading Exam That Could Be a Model

Chad Aldeman

How Does a School District Go Broke With $1.1B in Revenues? When It Spends $1.3B

Chad Aldeman

Interactive: In Many Schools, Declines in Student Enrollment are Here to Stay 

Chad Aldeman

Gaps Widening Between Indiana’s Highest- and Lowest-Performing Students

Chad Aldeman

4 Things Districts Should Do Right Now — Before the Fiscal Cliff

Chad Aldeman

Another Year of School Staffing Gains in 9,500 Districts as Fiscal Cliff Looms

Chad Aldeman

Slowdown in Health Care Expenses Is Saving School Districts Billions

Chad Aldeman

Interactive: See How Student Achievement Gaps Are Growing in Your State

Chad Aldeman

Wrong Ideas about Teacher Pay, Happiness May Keep Students from the Profession

Chad Aldeman

With 160,000 Jobs Added in 2023, the State of the Education Workforce Is Strong

Chad Aldeman

Emergency-Hired Teachers Do Just as Well as Those Who Go Through Normal Training

Chad Aldeman

New Report Finds Charters Deliver More Bang for the Buck than District Schools

Chad Aldeman

The 50 Very Different States of American Public Education

Chad Aldeman

Military Service Should Count as a Successful Pathway for High School Students

Chad Aldeman

Schooling vs. Learning: How Lax Standards Hurt the Lowest-Performing Students

Chad Aldeman

Schools Could Lose 136,000 Teaching Jobs When Federal COVID Funds Run Out

Chad Aldeman

With More Teachers & Fewer Students, Districts Are Set up for Financial Trouble

Chad Aldeman

Schools, Teachers & Parents Need Rapid State Test Results. Why Are They So Slow?

Chad Aldeman

Where Do New Teachers Come From? It’s Complicated. Policymakers Need to Know It

Chad Aldeman

In Alaska, a School of the Future 50 Years in the Making

Chad Aldeman

New Employment Data: 5 Things to Know About the State of the Education Workforce

Chad Aldeman

There’s Lots at Stake for Districts & Kids When Underenrolled Schools Stay Open

Chad Aldeman

Why the Science of Reading Is Right for My Young Learner

Chad Aldeman

A Progressive Vision for Educational Choice: 5 Questions to Ask

Chad Aldeman

Which Teaching Jobs Are Easier or Harder to Staff? New Data Has Some Answers

Chad Aldeman

New Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Inherits America’s Worst Teacher Pension Mess

Chad Aldeman

Surprise! Rising Enrollment Numbers Show Young People Want to Be Teachers

Chad Aldeman

Teacher Pension Pac-Man: How Rising Costs Are Eating Away at Education Budgets

Chad Aldeman

Federal Data: Schools Have Been Adding Teachers Even as They Serve Fewer Students

Chad Aldeman

On a Per-Student Basis, School Staffing Levels Are Hitting All-Time Highs

Chad Aldeman

Schools Try Bonuses, Stipends to Attract & Keep Teachers in a Tight Labor Market

Chad Aldeman & Katherine Silberstein

Teaching Kids to Read — Not Guess. Free Summer Program Launches to Help Parents

Chad Aldeman

New Learning Loss Calculator Estimates Costs of Catching Kids Up In 8K Districts

Marguerite Roza, Katherine Silberstein, Aashish Dhammani & Chad Aldeman

New Interactive Database Tracks Districts' Federal Relief Fund Spending

Chad Aldeman, Katherine Silberstein & Aashish Dhammani

New Dashboard Showcases Innovative Ideas in Education

Jim Cowen, Robin Lake & Chad Aldeman

There Is No 'Big Quit' in K-12 Education

Chad Aldeman

Can Districts Innovate? The Case of the School Bus Driver Shortage

Chad Aldeman & Marguerite Roza

Hired Today, Fired in ‘22: Are Relief Funds Setting Schools Up for Fiscal Cliff?

Chad Aldeman

How Districts Can Add Learning Time Without Breaking the Bank

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: 10 Lessons from Past Educational Disruptions, and How They Can Help Students Make Up Lost Learning After COVID-19

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Remote or in Person? Underspending or Running Deficits? What School Reopening Decisions Mean for District Budgets

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Lessons from Spanish Flu — Babies Born in 1919 Had Worse Educational, Life Outcomes Than Those Born Just Before or After. Could That Happen With COVID-19?

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Did School System Retirements Spike in 2020? Data from 7 State Pension Plans Show They’ve Actually Decreased

Chad Aldeman & Alex Spurrier

Aldeman: How Much Learning Time Are Students Getting? In 7 Large School Districts, Less Than Normal — and in 3, They’re Getting More

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Research Shows Students Lose Learning Even During Brief School Closures for Snow Days. Those Case Studies Show the Harm From COVID Will Be Multiplied Many Times Over

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: How Devastating Floods in Thailand in 2011 Harmed Students’ Academic Growth, and What Lessons We Can Use in Confronting Learning Loss During the Pandemic

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: What a Wave of Teacher Strikes in Argentina Can Teach Us About Learning Disruptions, Degree Attainment, Higher Unemployment & Lower Earnings

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: What a 2005 Earthquake in Pakistan Can Teach American Educators About Learning Loss After a Disaster

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Districts Are Calling the Shots During COVID Shutdowns. So Why Hold Schools Alone Accountable for Student Learning?

Chad Aldeman & Anne Hyslop

Analysis: What Lasting Academic (and Economic) Effects Could Coronavirus Shutdowns Have on This Generation of Students? Some Alarming Data Points From Research on Previous Disasters

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman & Dachille: What Will the Coronavirus Pandemic Mean for the Teacher Labor Market? 5 Predictions, and 4 Strategies for Districts

Chad Aldeman & Lauren Dachille

Aldeman: Teacher Pensions Took a Beating in the Great Recession and Passed the Costs on to New Employees. It’s Probably Going to Happen Again

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: The Iowa Caucuses Steer Our National Priorities. But Iowa’s Education Policies Are Bad for the Nation — and for Iowa

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: The 2010s May Be The Best Decade Ever in Terms of College Attainment. Don’t Dismiss the Value in That

Chad Aldeman

Analysis — One Big Takeaway From Two New Investigations About Real Estate and School Ratings: You Can’t Tell a Good School Without Measuring Student Growth

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Two Alternatives to New York City’s Teacher Pension System, Which Most Retirees Will Never Collect From

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: 3 Differences Between California’s Teacher Pension System and Social Security That Have a Huge Impact on Retirees — New Report

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Did Fear of School Closings Prompt Warren’s Tough Talk on Tests? She Needn’t Worry — Those Shutdowns Rarely Happen

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Mobility. Flexibility. Fairness. State Colleges Have These in Their Retirement Plans. So Why Don’t K-12 Districts?

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: We Think We Know How to Teach Reading, but We Don’t. What Else Don’t We Know, and What Does This Mean for Teacher Training?

Chad Aldeman

Marchitello & Aldeman: Democrats Want to Raise Teacher Pay. Here’s How the Government Can Really Help — By Promoting Pension Reform

Max Marchitello & Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Why Aren’t College Grads Becoming Teachers? The Answer Seems to Be Economic — and the Labor Market May Be Starting to Improve

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: The L.A. District May Owe $13.6 Billion for Health Care & Pensions — and the Strike Made Things Worse. Obamacare Is a Way Out

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman & Schmitz: D.C.’s High Teacher Turnover Rate Hurts Educators as Well as Students. Blame the District’s Pension Plan

Chad Aldeman & Kirsten Schmitz

Aldeman: Teachers Need to Build a Nest Egg. Schools Need Teachers to Stay on the Job. Changing Rules on Vesting in Pensions Can Help Both

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman & Marchitello: Skyrocketing Spending on Benefits Hurts Teachers and the Schools That Employ Them. 4 Steps Toward Fixing That

Chad Aldeman & Max Marchitello

Aldeman: How Have Pension Costs Hurt Teacher Pay? If Contributions Were Still at 2001 Levels, Every Teacher Would Get a 7% Raise Today

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Yes, Average Teacher Salaries Are Down. But Many Individual Teachers Are Doing Just Fine

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Striking Teachers in Arizona and Colorado Are Angry Over Pay. They Should Also Be Mad About Their Pensions

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: Teachers Have the Nation’s Highest Retirement Costs. But They’ll Never See the Benefits

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: How Much Does West Virginia Really Pay Its Teachers? How Pensions Muddy the Math on Teacher Salaries

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Yes, Teacher Turnover Can Be a Problem. But New Federal Data Show It’s Far From a National Crisis

Chad Aldeman

Aldeman: How La.’s Teacher Pension System Can Be Both Crushingly Expensive and Not Very Good for Educators

Chad Aldeman

Analysis: Yes, Teacher Turnover Matters. But Much of What We Think We Know About It Is Wrong

Chad Aldeman

Schmitz & Aldeman: Want to Keep Veteran Teachers? End the Pension Push-out

Kirsten Schmitz & Chad Aldeman

Clinton’s Wonky Side Could be a Weakness But One She Keeps Well Hidden on K-12 Education

Chad Aldeman & Kaitlin Pennington