Commentary
Topics
Commentary
Governance
Could breaking up the Education Department actually improve federal education policy?
The Trump administration has been shifting programs from the Department of Education to other parts of the federal government. This may be driven by politics, but it raises an intriguing question. What if the real issue is not whether the Department of Education survives intact, but whether some federal education programs might actually work better outside it?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
AI makes human writing more valuable—and changes how schools should teach it
The rise of AI has caused anxiety about the future of writing instruction. If the technology can write—or help people write—quickly and coherently on nearly any topic, and will likely get better and better at this, do we still need to teach students how to write?
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Should states go back to paper-and-pencil testing?
Next month, my 11-year-old will join her classmates to take the state assessment.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
When teachers move for money, their effectiveness may lag
In recent years, states and especially districts have turned to financial incentives to encourage high-performing
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Are we testing Idaho students twice for the same outcomes?
“We spend too much time on testing,” is a lament we hear often among Idaho educators. Surely it is a national sentiment as well.
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Are public schools part of the government, civil society, or both?
Please don’t call a local public school a “government school.” It is part of the community, and it and its peers are worth celebrating, conserving, and cherishing, now and for years to come.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Society is exploiting teen vulnerability and undermining education
The simplest, most effective policy for improving U.S. schools and student outcomes might not be an “education policy” at all—but stronger government protections for young people from addictive products and services that now routinely reach adolescents.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
High-quality instruction starts in educator preparation programs
Like many other teachers, I took the traditional route into the profession, pursuing an undergraduate degree in education.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Why do teachers quit?
I’ve worked at some rough schools. At one, as summer approached, my colleague and I reviewed the staff picture from September and counted that a third of the teachers who began in the fall had quit before the year’s end. We didn’t hold it against them.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
What do boys think about gambling?
March brings my favorite family pastime. Soon, the fanatics and ambivalent among us will fill out NCAA basketball brackets and tape them to the kitchen wall. My teen son will carefully analyze rankings for each team and stats for key players.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Math and the Mississippi Miracle
With updated reading policies on the books in over 40 states, ed policy advocates and legislators are now turning to math. Fourth grade NAEP math results are just as bad (if not worse), so why not take it on, as well? Bellwether has a nice round up of the current state of affairs.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders
Student effort is way down. It’s not their fault—it’s ours.
Teen cinema has always laughed at the try-hard.
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Charter Schools, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The 10-year test for durable schools
Within ten years, a successful school or district will almost certainly experience at least one superintendent change, multiple principal transitions, substantial staff turnover, curriculum reviews and technology initiatives, school board elections, and shifts in funding or political priorities.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
The role of private school choice in a morally fractured age
The United States is in a period of moral fragmentation and decay, and the extended family—the primary historical source of moral education—has given way to a nuclear family that is stretched thin and, in many cases, itself fractured.
Commentary
Teachers & School Leaders
How common is “counseling out”—or encouraging teachers to leave schools?
Principals play a crucial role in managing teacher quality, including hiring, developing, and retaining effective staff while also addressing low-performing teachers.
Commentary
Evidence-Based Learning, Teachers & School Leaders
College advising boosts enrollment but not persistence
The end of race-based affirmative action and persistent gaps in enrollment and degree attainment among students from low-income backgrounds have intensified
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
A future for IES?
Thank you, Amber! My colleague Amber Northern, Fordham’s longtime senior vice president for research, has done American education a great service by recommending a future for the Institute for Education Sciences that goes far beyond undoing the damage done by DOGE a year ago.
Commentary
Commentary
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Why conservatives keep losing school boards
“In culture war backlash, Democrats sweep school boards,” Politico proclaimed after 2025’s low-visibility elections. The storyline was already written. The education right had been rejected; the fight, readers were meant to assume, was finished.
Commentary
Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
The myth of local control
Earlier this month, I was having a conversation with a state leader I respect about why adoption of high-quality curriculum materials has been slow in their state. “Why not use the muscle of the state agency to speed things up?” I asked. “Because my state isn’t like Louisiana,” they said. “We’re a local-control state. I can’t just tell districts what to do.”
Commentary
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Good schools don’t beat staff turnover. They’re built for it.
Education has never lacked miracle schools and stories. The real challenge isn’t identifying successful schools but learning how to recognize whether their success is institutional or temporary. So if we wanted to predict whether a school’s success will last, what should we look for?
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Education in the age of feeling
If the medieval period was the age of faith, and the Enlightenment qualifies as the age of reason, what era are we living in now? Princeton’s Robbie George has an answer: the age of feeling.
Commentary
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders
Can states do anything about grade inflation?
Grade inflation is having a bit of a moment.
Commentary
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders
Global school choice at a glance
School choice has expanded and diversified over the last 30 years. No longer is it just “public vs. private” or even “district vs. charter vs.
