Author: BelieveAgain

Yesterday, we unveiled the 2026 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. Of course, education research involves a lot of scholars doing very different kinds of work in very different fields. Thus, each year, some readers are more interested in how scholars fared within particular fields of study than in where scholars rank overall. With that in mind, today we’ll report on the top 10 finishers for five disciplinary categories that tend to dominate educational scholarship. (For a detailed discussion of how the scoring was done, see Tuesday’s post here.)Now, there can be ambiguity when it comes to determining a given scholar’s…

At least eight states are trying to crack down on attempts to remove books in school libraries, passing legislation that gives librarians more leeway in selecting materials, sets up formal processes for responding to challenges, and bars schools from pulling books from the shelves for ideological reasons.Dubbed “freedom to read” laws by supporters, this legislation has emerged over the last two years, a response to the growing number of challenges to books for content related to race and LGBTQ+ issues in the post-pandemic period.The policies—passed in California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington—vary by jurisdiction, but…

Today, we unveil the 2026 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the 200 university-based scholars in the United States who had the biggest impact on educational practice and policy last year. The list includes scholars who auto-qualified due to last year’s rankings, as well as nominees chosen by the 27-member selection committee. Without further ado, here are the 2026 rankings (You can scroll vertically and horizontally through the chart below to see all names and scores).[Click here to open in a new tab.]For more on the selection committee, selection process, scoring, and other methodological particulars, you can check out yesterday’s…

A federal appeals court has blocked for the foreseeable future a groundbreaking decision by a federal district judge in California that said parents have a right to be informed by schools of any gender nonconformity and social transitions by their children.A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday granted the state of California’s request to halt the Dec. 22 decision by U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez, which had ruled against state education department guidance that restrains teachers and district staff members from informing parents about a child’s gender identity at school,…

Tomorrow, I’ll unveil the 2026 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 16th edition of the exercise. Today, I want to run through the methodology used to generate the rankings. The list is comprised of university-based scholars who focus primarily on education (with “university-based” meaning a formal affiliation). Scholars who lack a formal affiliation on a university website are ineligible.The top 150 finishers from last year automatically qualified for a spot in this year’s Top 200, so long as they met…

A federal appeals court has temporarily paused enforcement of a San Diego federal judge’s ruling that had cleared the way for school staff to tell parents about possible changes to their child’s gender presentation without the student’s consent.The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a short-term administrative stay of the ruling but has not yet decided whether to grant a longer-term stay pending an appeal. It’s expected to rule on that next week.The case, Mirabelli v. Olson, began in 2023 when two Escondido Union School District teachers sued over the district’s policy, based on state guidance at the time, prohibiting…

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is expected to elevate Kamar Samuels, an uptown Manhattan superintendent, to chancellor of the city’s public schools, sources confirmed to the Daily News.Samuels started his career as an elementary teacher, then middle school principal, both in the Bronx. He later led District 13 in Brooklyn—where he was best known for overseeing a districtwide middle school integration plan—before moving to District 3 in Manhattan for the last few years. He is also a parent.In his current position, he oversaw a contentious plan to reconfigure Harlem schools as part of a broader effort to address enrollment…

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is expected to elevate Kamar Samuels, an uptown Manhattan superintendent, to chancellor of the city’s public schools, sources confirmed to the Daily News.Samuels started his career as an elementary teacher, then middle school principal, both in the Bronx. He later led District 13 in Brooklyn—where he was best known for overseeing a districtwide middle school integration plan—before moving to District 3 in Manhattan for the last few years. He is also a parent.In his current position, he oversaw a contentious plan to reconfigure Harlem schools as part of a broader effort to address enrollment…

The nation’s second-largest teachers’ union and a Chicago-area nonprofit are suing the U.S. Department of Education over its decision to cut funding for community schools in the middle of approved, multiyear projects.The American Federation of Teachers and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council argue in the lawsuit, which was filed Dec. 29, that the Education Department “cut off funding without notice, without lawful justification, and without following required procedures,” according to the press release from the organizations.The lawsuit comes a little more than two weeks after recipients of the active five-year grants from the Full-Service Community Schools programs received letters from…

Amid rapidly changing federal policy moves from the Trump administration on immigration this year, some conservative state leaders also made efforts to attack a landmark education-related U.S. Supreme Court case.The 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe granted undocumented students equal access to a free, public education. Attempts to undermine this have included proposals requesting families’ immigration status information at enrollment and charging tuition from undocumented families.Following President Donald Trump’s election to a second term in 2024, an Education Week analysis found efforts taken in at least six states to challenge the Plyler decision. Five such attempts were paused or failed…