Jill Barshay
The Hechinger Report
New York, NY, United States
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Past articles by Jill:
In a demanding era, using new tools and sharpening old ones
A sampling of Hechinger reporting for The New York Times’s Learning section → Read More
PROOF POINTS: The paradox of "good" teaching
Researchers find a tradeoff between raising achievement and engaging students → Read More
PROOF POINTS: In two places, researchers find problems with expansion of free pre-K
NYC study points to segregated classrooms with lower quality for poor Black students → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Lessons from college dropouts who came back
A staggering 39 million U.S. adults started but didn’t finish college → Read More
PROOF POINTS: New evidence of high school grade inflation
ACT study finds that the trend of rising GPAs accelerated after 2016 and intensified during the pandemic → Read More
PROOF POINTS: $1.5 billion in recovery funds go to afterschool
But research indicates it may not stem learning loss → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Debunking the myth that teachers stop improving after five years
Newer research finds that even experienced educators get better albeit at a slower pace. → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Researchers blast data analysis for teachers to help students
Data pinpoints problems but not solutions for teachers → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Most manufacturing certificate holders don’t get jobs in manufacturing
Professional training programs have exploded over the last dozen years. By one count, there are now more than 500,000 of them, ranging from dental assistant certification programs at for-profit colleges to Microsoft certifications in cloud computing. These short courses last from as little as a few weeks to as long as a year and don’t […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: The number of college graduates in the humanities drops for the eighth consecutive year
When the economy is growing, people are generally more willing to take risks. That’s true for college students too. In the post-war boom of the 1950s, college students were confident of their economic futures and many studied liberal arts subjects such as English, history and philosophy. In the stagflation of the 1970s, interest in these […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: What research tells us about gifted education
After years of discussion, New York City announced in October 2021 that it is overhauling gifted and talented programs, eliminating the testing of thousands of 4-year-olds and the city’s separate education system of schools and classrooms for students who score high on this one test. I wanted to know what the research evidence says about […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Focusing on glasses in schools
An argument for providing social services in schools is that students will learn better when their basic needs are met. The national lunch program exists because children don’t learn well on an empty stomach. By a similar logic, it’s hard to learn to read or multiply if you can’t see the whiteboard. It’s estimated that […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: What almost 150 studies say about how to motivate students
An unmotivated student is unlikely to learn much at school. But there’s a wide range of opinion on what parents and teachers can do to instill that motivation. Some swear by rewards and prizes. Others lavish praise or dole it out judiciously. A team of Canadian and Australian researchers decided to take a scientific approach […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: When remedial education gets woven into class time
As students return to school for the 2021-22 year, educators are thinking about how to teach children who have missed months of instruction because of the pandemic. Should they step back or proceed ahead? Should math teachers start fourth grade, for example, by reviewing important third grade topics such as multiplication and fractions? Or should […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: New poll points to college and career benefits of Greek life despite criticism
There are plenty of reasons to be critical of college fraternities and sororities. Hazing deaths happen too often. Rape and sexual assaults are even more common. Members of these exclusionary clubs are disproportionately white and wealthy. Instances of blatant racist and homophobic behavior are well documented. Amid the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, calls […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Rural American students shift away from math and science during high school, study finds
Only 13 percent of rural students major in math and science in college, compared with almost 17 percent of students in the suburbs. → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Three strikes and you’re out
Students may get in trouble for dreaming about baseball instead of paying attention in class. But the sport might help teachers find ways to keep kids focused. In a new study, a team of economists scrutinized all the “strikes” and “balls” shouted and signaled by Major League Baseball (MLB) umpires from 2008 to 2018. There […] → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Why parental consent often isn’t required in education research
As I dug into the rules governing informed consent in educational research, I was surprised to learn that parental consent often isn’t required by law. → Read More
PROOF POINTS: A new experiment in turning classrooms into laboratories
A new effort is underway, funded by the former CEO of Google, to encourage more teachers to conduct high-quality classroom research. → Read More
PROOF POINTS: Pandemic relief money is flowing to class-size reduction but research evidence for it isn’t strong
Cutting class size appears to be increasingly popular but research evidence for class-size reduction isn't strong. → Read More