“The bad new bipartisan consensus behind falling test scores.” —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring A Massachusetts high school’s partnership with a trade union provides students with hands-on experience and pathways to union apprenticeships, addressing the skilled labor shortage while promoting inclusivity
Everyone knows that standardized tests paint an incomplete picture of schools’ impacts on students. Yet the search for alternative indicators of school quality has been a disappointment. Might a new measure based on students' GPA's hold promise?
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Mike and David discuss what’s really going on with DOG
Editor’s note: This was first published by The 74.
The gender gap in education is less talked about than many other achievement gaps, but it persists.
While some aspects of the putative
Trump’s crusade against DEI aims to restore meritocracy—but to do so, he must also address disparate-impact theory, which prohibits “neutral” practices that disproportionately impact specific groups (e.g., testing requirements that disqualify black applicants at higher rates), but often ends up harming the groups it intends to protect.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Delia Pompa, Senior Fellow for Education P
If DOGE actually sought the “government efficiency” in its name, it could help modernize the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. But slashing and burning, as happened the other day, won’t improve matters. It’s just going to weaken the foremost truth squad in American education, the chief sponsor and funder of rigorous analysis, reliable data, and clear-eyed evaluations in a realm that needs more of those things, not less.
Conservative criticism of Penny Schwinn’s nomination as Deputy Secretary of Education has so far focused on her bona fides in fighting “culture wars” in schools. But other important elements are at stake right now. Specifically, prioritizing competence and effectiveness in teachers, administrators, and leaders. Our students deserve no less. Schwinn’s nomination is an opportunity to refocus on what truly matters.
Opponents make lots of arguments against education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarship programs, and other forms of private school choice. But the complaint that schools aren’t required to test their students is generally false. We dig in and set the record straight
This fictional press release outlines a transformational approach to the typical school calendar, creating two different grade-level entry points and offering the promise of improving academic outcomes as well as the PK–12 education profession.
A special issue of the Journal of School Choice is now out, focusing entirely on homeschooling research. It includes 16 studies from 23 authors at more than a dozen institutions. Hard data on homeschooling has long been scarce, so this issue is worthy of attention.
Looking at the impacts of desegregation through an economic lens, Roland Fryer says that racial integration isn’t merely a moral or ethical endeavor but an economic necessity when access to important developmental resources are on the line.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Brian Kisida, Associate Professor at
Though President Trump’s new executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” contains many elements that resonate with me philosophically and educationally, I’m having trouble reconciling it with the longstanding statutory prohibition on Uncle Sam mucking with
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, Governing Right
The data are out, and as everybody now knows—and as Mike Petrilli foresaw—they’re pretty grim. Here’s the short version, straight from the National Center for Education Statistics:
From its founding, the lodestone of the Knowledge Matters Campaign has been evidence-based, content-rich English language arts (ELA) curricula. A possible unintended consequence of the success of this movement has been reduced instruction in science and social studies.
Ignite Reading is one of many tutoring interventions unleashed upon America’s schools to try to mitigate learning loss experienced by students in the wake of pandemic-era school closures.
Despite working longer hours and experiencing higher levels of stress
In the highly polarized debate over critical race theory (CRT), one side claims that CRT is nonexistent in schools, while the other argues that it is an epidemic. A new survey finds that the truth is somewhere in between—and that, regardless, most students are forming their beliefs based on sources outside of school.
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Tim Daly, CEO of EdNavigator, joins Mike and David to discuss w
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday afternoon to hear a landmark religious charter schools case out of Oklahoma, and it’s a much bigger deal than you might imagine.
The education world was greeted with encouraging news over the weekend when President Trump announced that former Tennessee education commissioner Penny Schwinn would serve as the next U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education. Schwinn’s track record should complement Secretary-designate Linda McMahon’s skill set, and augurs well for a new administration that is being pulled in different directions on education policy.
Editor’s note: This piece was also published on the author’s new Substack, The Next 30 Years.
When I graduated from high school, the first charter schools in America were just opening their doors. But I have advocated for, worked with, and supported their right to serve families for more than twenty years now.
