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Commentary
What we’re reading this week: April 17, 2025
The Education Department under the Trump administration has adopted a more aggressive civil rights enforcement strategy, marked by rapid investigations, funding threats, and a focus on LGBTQ+ and antisemitism issues.
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School Finance, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Can the left deliver education abundance?
Ezra Klein’s new book has sparked an important discussion about how the left can provide more housing and transportation. However, one area that particularly needs self-reflection is education. The left has often obstructed the creation of new and innovative schools.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
How the AFT could have changed teaching and learning (and maybe still can)
The AFT’s journal, The American Educator, was for many years a reliable source of first-rate research and practice tips for those who think teaching should run on evidence, not folklore and philosophy. It could still be an important engine of K–12 instructional reform today. All it would take is for Randi Weingarten and the AFT to give it some attention and visibility. Or failing that, just leave it the heck alone.
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Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
A K–12 public school choice agenda for the Trump administration
The Trump administration’s K–12 education policy prescriptions typically focus on ways to provide financial support for private schools, including federal vouchers and tax-credit scholarships.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
What are students doing between 6 p.m. and midnight?
Editor’s note: This is the first of two posts on what students do outside of school hours. For decades, field biologists tried to understand animals by observing them during the day. They’d sit in a jeep, holding a notebook, maybe wearing a funny hat. They observed what lions, elephants, or jaguars did under the sun.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Short- and long-term impacts of school closure on student outcomes
According to a report issued by the OECD in 2018, school closures are an inevitable consequence of declining populations of school-age children across much of the world, and the United States is not im
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Commentary
What we’re reading this week: April 10, 2025
Students with Indiana’s new Enrollment Honors Plus diploma, which requires advanced coursework and work experience, will gain automatic admission to state colleges, while those on career or military tracks will receive guaranteed job or enlistment opportunities.
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Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Advanced students rebounded faster from learning loss. They still need our attention.
Countless articles have been written about students’ recent bleak performance on the Nation’s Report Card, most of which rightly bemoaned declines in reading and math, compared to 2019 and 2022 scores, especially among lower-scoring students.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The best colleges for political diversity
It is decision time for the high school class of 2025, with commitments due to colleges by May 1. Among the many factors that students might consider when deciding whether a college is the right fit for them is the political climate on campus. Simply put, are both liberals and conservatives relatively well represented in the student body?
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Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Waiver and out: How red states plan to push the limits of federal ed policy
Red states are lining up to test just how much leeway they can get from Uncle Sam’s education mandates, with some pushing for block grants that would allow them to consolidate federal aid into a single grant with few spending restrictions.
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Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
12 guiding principles for the future of American education
It’s a bleak time in education policy.
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What we’re reading this week: April 3, 2025
Prolonged school closures and shifting rhetoric have undermined Democrats' once-clear commitment to education as a transformative force. To regain their edge, Democrats must refocus on student learning and outcomes, rather than just education spending.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Freddie deBoer is right about one thing, not everything
The writer Freddie deBoer makes one really important point about the ed reform movement: We have overpromised and underdelivered because we ignore the obvious truth that some kids are smarter than others. Where he’s wrong is in thinking that this one good point makes the whole reform enterprise a waste of time.
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Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
New Nation’s Report Card disappoints—but shouldn’t surprise
The latest Nation’s Report Card dashed hopes that U.S. students might have finally closed pandemic learning gaps. The results show reading scores are down nationally in both fourth and eighth grade, compounding declines on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
The pandemic was a Sputnik moment for rethinking education, and we blew it
The pandemic gave the country a chance to rethink how states and school districts deliver quality education.
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Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice
Do education savings accounts increase the cost of private school tuition?
Education savings accounts (ESAs) are taxpayer-funded spending accounts with differing eligibility requirements and usage guidelines depending on the state. Between the 2021–22 and 2022–23 school years, participation in them nearly tripled nationally, rising to roughly 489,000 total students.
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What we’re reading this week: March 27, 2025
New research shows that Democrat-leaning states saw greater pandemic-related learning loss, especially in math, likely due to longer school closures.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders
Should special education include advanced students?
Editor’s note: A different version of this essay was first published by The 74.
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School Finance, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
LOLCats: A real efficiency effort for our schools
Set aside for a moment the debate about whether Elon Musk’s DOGE is an honest effort to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government. Let’s ask a different question: What would a serious effort to get more bang from our education buck look like?
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Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Education at an inflection point
For generations, the traditional public school has been a bedrock institution in American life.
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Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Trump needs to call Lamar
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, Governing Right.
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What we’re reading this week: March 20, 2025
Reflecting on his own Hasidic education, this author argues that, while cultural preservation is important, public officials should ensure that all children gain basic skills to ensure that they have the freedom to choose their future.
Commentary
Governance
11 thoughts about the massive layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education
Trump administration officials announced on Tuesday that they are laying off 1,300 employees at the U.S. Department of Education. This is on top of nearly 600 people who had already taken early retirement or buyouts, as well as another 60 probationary employees who had already been fired. This brings the agency’s headcount down from about 4,100 to about 2,200, a major reduction. Here are some thoughts on the situation as we understand it now.
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School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Should schools pay students to attend remediation programs?
When my middle child was in high school, nothing I said or did could keep him from dropping out. But what if I’d tried paying him?
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Accountability & Testing, Teachers & School Leaders
The return of accountability
During a January 29 town hall in Washington to discuss dismal new test results, Harvard professor Marty West—who serves as the vice chair of the board that oversees na
