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March 10, 2025
Many Children Left Behind: The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress Results Indicate a Five-Alarm Fire
Key Points Introduction By now, the awful results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)1 have been publicized, chewed over, and digested—and they are already moving into the rearview mirror as states, school districts, and teachers fall back into the comfortable routine of doing the same thing over and over again. But continuing that…
February 24, 2025
A Conservative Vision for Higher Education Reform
Key Points Introduction The year 2019 marked a dramatic turning point in the national discourse on higher education policy. On April 22, 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren, vying for the Democratic nomination for president, announced that as president she’d cancel up to $50,000 of student debt for 42 million Americans.1 She started a chain reaction, with each…
January 29, 2025
How State Governments Can Fight Degree Inflation
Key Points Executive Summary State governments have significantly exacerbated the phenomenon of degree inflation, where jobs increasingly require college degrees that were not previously necessary. State hiring practices and stringent occupational licensing laws perpetuate this trend. These policies restrict access to various professions, create labor shortages, and reduce the return to a college education for…
January 24, 2025
Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Although national test scores provide clear evidence on student achievement across time, they do not illuminate what is driving gains or losses. Nonetheless, careful examination of test scores can corroborate some explanations for changes in student achievement and discount others. This report examines recent trends in US student…
January 24, 2025
Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Although national test scores provide clear evidence on student achievement across time, they do not illuminate what is driving gains or losses. Nonetheless, careful examination of test scores can corroborate some explanations for changes in student achievement and discount others. This report examines recent trends in US student…
December 17, 2024
States Should Drop Accreditation Requirements for New Colleges
Key Points Read the full pdf. Introduction Accreditation is a major barrier to higher education reform. In a bid to reduce the agencies’ power over state universities, Florida and North Carolina have passed laws requiring public colleges to periodically change accreditors.1 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke for many policy-savvy conservative leaders when he declared that you…
December 2, 2024
Reforming State Authorization of Colleges to Boost Competition and Lower Tuition
Key Points Executive Summary Higher education suffers from barriers to entry. Though the ranks of students at traditional colleges have grown by 29 percent over the past three decades, the number of active institutions has declined. Four in five students today attend an institution that was founded before 1970, and virtually none attend a school…
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.