Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?”
Over the summer, Edunomics Lab predicted that, once up and at scale, the federal tax credit scholarship (FSTC) could generate some $1,000 per public school student. However, now that Treasury has released its long-awaited draft regulations, we’re downgrading that prediction. It all comes down to an onerous requirement that public school participants prove they are not super rich.
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?”
Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?”
On Monday, World Teachers’ Day, friends and relatives of the late Rod Paige released the trailer for a forthcoming film about his remarkable life and career. Titled Paragraphs of a Paige, the appetite-whetting trailer can be viewed here.
I recently wrote an essay for The Dispatch about the wave of regret washing over America’s political left…and the wave of regret building offshore of the political right. But today I want to focus on regret and the “education reform” movement. The sudden change
If you’ve paid even general attention to Texas education news over the past few years, you’ve likely heard some version of the phrase “local school districts being taken over by the state.” Maybe it registered as a Houston story, since that made statewide headlines.
While four-year college degrees are largely viewed as a direct path into career-ladder jobs (AI fears notwithstanding), two-year degrees and shorter-term certificates are seen as less of a sure thing.
Kevin Shafer, president of City Fund, joins Mike Petrilli and David Griffith to discuss
If you want to be a faster runner, research says you should run more often and farther. I used this “run more” strategy over the past year and, I kid you not, my performance has improved quite drastically. Sometimes plain ol’ common sense is the answer to life’s many problems.
“What we’re going to do for our kids’ education” might be the single most common discussion I have had in my social life as a parent. Like many parents in NYC and across the country, I was captivated by Nikole Hannah-Jones’s essay in the New York Times. Parents are constantly asking themselves, “Have I done right by my kid” when it comes to education.
The viral article by Nikole Hannah-Jones— “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”—sparked an outpouring of responses from opinion writers far and wide, as did the accompanying
The push for no-zero grading policies, which prohibit assigning zeros for class assignments or tests, began during a broader “
Dual enrollment (DE) programs allow students to take college courses for credit—usually at no cost—while still in high school. Students must pass the course in order to earn credit. Efforts to increase DE access mean more high schoolers than ever are taking college courses.
I’m going to be impatient and blunt: Nikole Hannah-Jones’s daughter did not fail to learn fractions because she and her classmates were Black. Her teacher did not repeatedly fail to show up to work because the school was segregated. Neither did her assignments go ungraded because affluent children attended school elsewhere.
Kimberly Richey, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S.
For 12 years now, we at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have hosted an annual Wonkathon on our Flypaper blog to generate substantive conversation around key issues in education reform. If you’re keen to jump in—and we hope you are—please let us know and indicate when we can expect your draft. Submissions are due by Friday, October 23, 2026.
During my school years, I was often called a student who “could do better.” I took feedback seriously and tried to act on it. But one teacher had already made up his mind about me. He thought I was lazy and naughty. There was a reason for it, but somehow that single incident became my identity, and it showed up in my grades. I kept wondering how to get out of his bad books. I never did.
I have heard a number of leaders start discussions about AI with the question, “Are you for or against AI?”
When Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that her daughter finally told her, “Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me,” every parent who works in education should stop and sit with those words. I did.
My son is an NYC Teaching Fellow. This September, he is teaching special education middle school math in the Bronx.
For decades, teacher professional learning in middle and high school has prioritized one thing above all else: pedagogy.
This year, Teach For America marks its 35th anniversary. Few organizations have shaped education reform so profoundly. It produced not only achievement gains among students, but also an elite talent pipeline of TFA alumni. In recent years, however, those laudable outcomes have receded as the organization shifted its mission into more ideological terrain. Recent trends present an opportunity for Teach For America to rediscover what once made it so effective.
