Author: BelieveAgain
Private school choice has taken hold across the United States and shows few signs of slowing down. GOP lawmakers in close to a dozen states are signaling that it’s among their top legislative priorities in 2025.Even so, elected officials and education advocates across the political spectrum continue to debate these policies’ effects on state budgets, student learning, and the public school system.At the start of the year, 28 states and the District of Columbia each had at least one program that supplies public funds for parents to spend on educational options outside of public schools. Twelve of those states make,…
In my experience, what K–12 educators want from research is stuff that’s useful. They want strategies rooted in evidence and frank appraisals of whether instructional practices actually do what they say. They want researchers who kick the tires and fair-mindedly report on the strengths and weaknesses of pedagogies, practices, and policies.That’s not what educators are getting. On a range of sensitive questions—from restorative justice to social-emotional learning to culturally responsive education to gender identity to affirmative action—the education research community has, in recent years, operated as if its role is to help advance a morally correct set of nostrums.This matters…
A federal district judge in Kentucky has struck down the Biden administration’s Title IX regulation that added sexual orientation and transgender status to the definition of sexual discrimination protections. The decision—the first one to fully consider the merits of the Title IX rule—appears to apply nationwide, which would mean the end of the highly controversial regulation because the incoming Trump administration seems unlikely to appeal. The ruling—issued Jan. 9—is also the first time a court has found that the regulation interpreted by some as requiring teachers to address transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns violates the First Amendment.If…
Yesterday, we unveiled the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. Of course, education research includes a lot of people doing very different kinds of work. Thus, over the years, readers have been intensely interested in how scholars fared within particular fields of study. Where scholars rank overall may be less telling than where they rank within their field. Today, we’ll report on the top 10 finishers for five disciplinary categories. (For a detailed discussion of how the scoring was done, see Wednesday’s post here.)Now, there can be ambiguity when it comes to determining a given scholar’s discipline. For the most…
Since former President Donald Trump won the November election, educators’ concerns have centered on his politically complicated pledges to cut federal education funding and dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, and what stamp former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, whom he plans to nominate to lead the U.S. Department of Education, might put on the agency. But Trump’s vision for disruptive change crosses all Cabinet agencies, with potentially broad implications for K-12 schools. That’s because many agencies beyond the Education Department have a toehold in what schools do and the policies that affect their students.Trump’s Cabinet picks could affect…
Today, we unveil the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the 200 university-based scholars in the United States who did the most last year to shape educational practice and policy. The list includes the top 150 finishers from the 2024 rankings, augmented by at-large nominees chosen by the 24-member Selection Committee. So, without further ado, here are the 2025 rankings (scroll through the chart to see all names and scores).[Click here to open in a new tab.]For more on the committee, selection process, and methodological particulars, you can check out yesterday’s post here.The top scorers are all familiar names…
Tomorrow, I’ll be unveiling the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, recognizing the 200 university-based scholars who had the biggest influence on educational practice and policy last year. This will be the 15th annual edition of the rankings. Today, I want to run through the methodology used to generate those rankings.The list is comprised of university-based scholars who focus primarily on educational questions (with “university-based” meaning a formal university affiliation). Scholars who do not have a formal affiliation on a university website are ineligible.The 150 finishers from last year automatically qualified for a spot in this year’s Top 200, so…
On Thursday, I’ll be publishing the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, tracking the 200 education scholars who had the biggest influence on the nation’s education discourse last year. Today, I want to take a few moments to explain the nature of the exercise. (I’ll reveal the scoring formula tomorrow.)I start from two simple premises: 1) Ideas matter, and 2) People devote more time and energy to those activities that are valued. The academy today does a passable job of acknowledging good disciplinary scholarship but a poor job of recognizing scholars who move ideas from the pages of barely read…
Hundreds of rural school districts nationwide will soon have to ponder laying off employees, cutting programs, and raising local taxes after Congress missed the end-of-2024 deadline to renew a key stream of federal funding.For most of the last 25 years, the Secure Rural Schools Act has supplied hundreds of millions of dollars to counties where a large share of land consists of federally owned forests. Counties send a big chunk of that money to school districts for everything from paying teachers to replacing HVAC systems. Counties also get to spend some of the funds on vital public services like emergency…
Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at 100, is best known in education for overseeing the creation of a federal department of education. But his long life was full of intersections with education policy and a personal history with the nation’s struggles over race and schools.These are highlights of Carter’s life and record of public service with respect to education. They are drawn from Education Week’s longer obituary of Carter, which among other things details his efforts, and some of the drama, behind the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. Carter grew up on his father’s farm,…