CHEERS
“The work is sometimes difficult and often takes years to unfold, especially in order to have a sizeable impact on the roughly 5.5 million public school students around the state,” Mike Morath tells Keri Heath. She traces the path that led the Texas Education Agency commissioner to his current role, in which he’s now served for a decade, portraying a leader on a moral mission, fully committed to accountability. —The Houston Chronicle
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Jonah Goldberg makes a strong case for keeping AI out of American classrooms. “Just as you can’t learn how to ride a bike from reading a book, you can’t get the benefits of reading by asking AI to read a book for you. The same holds for math, science, computer programming and nearly every other aspect of education.” —AEI
JEERS
The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles/Teamsters Local 2010 secured big benefits for LAUSD school principals after recent strike threats. Jed Wallace discussesthe unheard-of concession allowing principals to “reclaim hours” beyond a 40-hour work week without supervisory approval, launching “a new race to the bottom.” As Gustavo Arellano reports in the Los Angeles Times, the union’s leader admits that the new contracts require money that doesn’t exist—not a great look alongside job cuts and declining enrollment, but these are “issues for another day.” Talk about kicking the can down the road and putting the needs of students last.
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“More than a third of the federal government’s education research budget—an estimated $289 million—could go unspent this year,” writes Jill Barshay. Particularly troubling: “85 percent of the $77 million designated for special education remains unspent and there are no federal notices or documents, as there usually would be, detailing plans to launch grant competitions and spend it.” —The Hechinger Report
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a twice-weekly free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation.
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Sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates
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Curated commentary from across the ed-policy world
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Lively discussion—including reader reactions and pushback
