Author: Matt Barnum

Welcome to Chalkbeat Ideas, a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.At a recent Chalkbeat event, Education Department official Lindsey Burke toggled between two different messages. On the one hand, she offered sharp criticism of the agency, suggesting it was to blame for disappointing test scores. On the other hand, she repeatedly reassured anxious teachers and parents that little would change as the department’s programs are moved elsewhere.The Education Department is “a bureaucratic boondoggle that has not led to the types of outcomes that we would all have…

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.“The Southern surge” — learning gains in a number of Southern states — has drawn a remarkable wave of attention in recent weeks. A growing chorus of voices say these states offer a playbook to reverse a decade of nationwide learning declines. It’s “the biggest education story of the last few years,” wrote David Brooks in the New York Times. It’s even come up in the New Jersey governor’s race.So I wanted to…