Kendra Espinoza with her two daughters at Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell, Mont. The Supreme Court’s decision siding with religious-school parents in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue will have implications far beyond Montana. Though the court did not explicitly…
Month: June 2020
Justice Alito’s Brief Retelling of Blaine Amendment History – by Samuel Alito
JUSTICE ALITO, concurring [in the Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue decision.] I join the opinion of the Court in full. The basis of the decision below was a Montana constitutional provision that, according to the Montana Supreme Court, forbids…
Focus on Teaching, Not Just Masks and Hand-Sanitizer – by Eric A. Hanushek
Education discussions today have a time horizon of three months. In the fall, will we mix at-home with in-school? Does everybody have a digital hookup? Should we have police in schools? As important as these issues are, they have the…
What Do We Know About School Discipline Reform? – by Matthew P. Steinberg
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced this spring that the number of suspensions and expulsions in the nation’s public schools had dropped 20 percent between 2012 and 2014.
The news was welcomed by those who oppose the frequent use of suspensions and expulsions, known as exclusionary discipline. In recent years, many policymakers and educators ha...
Toward Reopening: What Will School Look Like this Fall? – by Christopher Cleveland
With the pandemic-impacted spring semester wrapped up across the country, the focus is now on the fall, when districts will need to translate public health guidance from organizations like the Centers for Disease Control into local implementation to reopen schools.…
The Education Exchange: How the “Structural Racism” Talk Undermines Individual Agency – by Education Next
The CEO of Public Prep, a nonprofit charter school network, Ian Rowe, joins Paul Peterson to discuss the “common struggle” for civil rights in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody.
Rowe, who is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, also discusses his charter network’s early childhood work: “starting at 18 m...
Research lacking on school discipline reforms – by External Relations, Education Next
Contact: Jackie Kerstetter: 814-440-2299, jackie.kerstetter@educationnext.org, Education Next Communications Kat Stein: 215-898-9642, katstein@gse.upenn.edu, Penn Graduate School of Education Research lacking on school discipline reforms Thin evidence on causes of and alternatives to suspensions, expulsions September 29, 2016—Since 2011, the Obama administration…
Pension Incentives and Teacher Retention – by Cory Koedel
It is increasingly apparent that public defined-benefit (DB) pension plans, including teacher plans, across the United States are in a difficult financial situation. Chicago Public Schools is now routinely in the news for its precarious finances, owing in large part to pension problems. In a recent paper covered previously in this blog space, we document that on average across...
The New Gates Strategy: Evolution, Not Revolution (For Better and For Worse) – by Michael J. Petrilli
It’s understandable that my friend Rick Hess would tell the Washington Post that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s approach to K–12 education has been all over the map, that “it feels like they have pivoted through a number of strategies over the last decade or two.” At first blush, he’s right. Once it was small schools, then Common Core, and now “school networks” are th...
A Few More Questions for the National History Teacher of the Year – by Frederick Hess
Last week, I spoke with 2017 National History Teacher of the Year Sara Ziemnik. Our conversation generated quite a bit of feedback and follow-up, including a number of practical queries from practitioners that I didn’t think to ask. When I mentioned that to Ziemnik, she kindly agreed to offer some additional thoughts. Here’s what she had to say.
Rick Hess: Sara, tha...