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March 31, 2025
Reimagining Federal Education R&D: DARPA for Education
Earlier in my professional life, I was the head of the political science department at Stony Brook University. When the chairs of the arts and science met, someone from the physical or life sciences would inevitably argue that the “hard” natural sciences deserved more support than the “soft” social sciences. My rejoinder was one of…
March 25, 2025
Reimagining Federal Education R&D: IES, Workforce Skills, and State Leadership
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has taken a hit from DOGE, losing about 90 percent of its workforce. Regardless of the future of the Education Department, we need to continue to improve education R&D and identify what in IES should be preserved, or indeed expanded, to meet the nation’s needs today and in the…
November 19, 2024
We Aren’t Testing Students on the Computer Skills They Actually Need
The results of the 2023 International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) were just released. ICILS is given to a sample of eighth-grade students and is supposed to measure their ability to use information and communications technology. Including the United States, 35 education systems worldwide participated in the study of “computer and information literacy,” while a subset…
November 12, 2024
The National Assessment of Educational Progress Recompete: Is It Real Change or Lipstick on a Pig?
Key Points Read the PDF. The American government runs on contracts between government agencies and private companies (both for- and not-for-profit).1 When things go awry, it is often because a long-term incumbent contractor lacked the incentive to provide more cost-effective services or accountability for a poor product, both of which have been made clear by the…
November 12, 2024
Government Contracting for “America’s Report Card” Is Broken
If you tried to apply for federal student aid this 2024–2025 school year, you would have been met with a glitch-filled online form created using 40-year-old code, released three months behind schedule, and that might have arrived too late for a college to offer you the aid you applied for. This failure of the Education Department and…