October 16, 2024
11 Ways the Federal Government Is Making It More Difficult to Access Career Pathways
Key Points Read the full pdf. Introduction America is becoming worse at connecting workers with jobs—in part because it is unnecessarily difficult to offer and access education and training that could prepare students for a career. Two decades ago, there were just over three million open jobs, and it took, on average, fewer than 20…
August 1, 2024
Financing Graduate Education: Next Steps for Federal Policy
Key Points Read the full pdf.
March 21, 2024
Three Principles for Conservative Early-Childhood Policy
Key Points Read the full pdf.
May 25, 2023
Education Freedom and Work Opportunities as Catalysts for Increasing the Birth Rate Among Married Couples
Summary Pursuing new, commonsense approaches to education reform and work–family policies, from childcare and early education through higher education and workforce flexibility, will foster the conditions for family flourishing and increase birth rates for married couples. Affordable childcare from a variety of providers, including at-home options, access to high-quality K–12 education that reflects a family’s…
February 23, 2023
Distance to 100: An Alternative to Racial Achievement Gaps
Policymakers and practitioners can do only so much to solve any problem without a clear, unbiased view of the underlying causes. Educators today have failed to improve student achievement largely because we use an inadequate conceptual framework to understand poor academic performance. The prevailing national lens for interpreting student progress or lack of it is…
February 22, 2023
Unlocking the Future
Editor’s Note: The following chapters are AEI scholars’ contributions to a report from Opportunity America’s working group on K-12 education. The toll of the pandemic years is becoming clearer every day: devastating learning loss among the nation’s K-12 students. Parents are angry, voting for change and telling pollsters they want more control over their children’s…
February 22, 2023
Unlocking the Future
Editor’s Note: The following chapters are AEI scholars’ contributions to a report from Opportunity America’s working group on K-12 education. The toll of the pandemic years is becoming clearer every day: devastating learning loss among the nation’s K-12 students. Parents are angry, voting for change and telling pollsters they want more control over their children’s…
November 28, 2022
Public School Instructional Offerings and Enrollment Changes: Evidence from Two Years After the Pandemic
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary We examine how COVID-related reopening policies during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years affected enrollment in public school districts. We use difference-in-differences and event study designs to estimate plausibly causal effects of different reopening policies on public school enrollment. Consistent with prior research, we find that public school…
August 10, 2022
A Failure to Respond: Public School Mask Mandates in the 2021–22 School Year
Key Points From September 2021 to late February 2022, school district mask mandates were in place for 61 percent of students in the US.During that period, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance advised all students and teachers to mask indoors, with no flexibility based on local conditions.On February 25, 2022, the CDC adopted…
February 23, 2022
The Case Against Universal Free Lunch
Key Points Read the PDF. Introduction Who should feed children? Parents or the government? Before the pandemic, more than half of American public school students were eligible for free or reduced price school lunch (FRL).1 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed expanding the program to provide free breakfast, lunch, and dinner to every American public school…