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June 9, 2023

Schools Use Racist “Reparations Math” to Indoctrinate Black Students with Victimization

“What I learned about Em is that we as black people are still not free.Reparations can help close the wealth gap but instead the gov’t and other citizens feels like they don’t owe anything.For an example they use EM to say that we are free.But when it comes to low paying jobs mainly of colored…

By Ian Rowe

June 8, 2023

Oklahoma Has Approved the Nation’s First Religious Charter School. What’s That Mean?

The school choice landscape has been in flux of late. Earlier this week, Oklahoma approved the nation’s first religious charter school. In the past two years, seven states have adopted Education Savings Accounts or expansive school voucher programs, and the legal status of state “Blaine amendments” is very much in question. It seemed like a good time to check…

By Frederick M. Hess

May 31, 2023

Choice Reconsidered

Discussions of school choice frequently fall into familiar morality plays: Either you’re for empowering parents or supporting public education. The resulting debate manages to miss much of what matters. It ignores that all kinds of choices are hard-wired into American public education. It skips past the fact that the affluent already choose schools when purchasing homes, so…

By Frederick M. Hess

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…

By W. Bradford Wilcox | Lindsey Burke | Rachel Greszler

May 10, 2023

AI Tutoring Has a Lot to Offer. But so Does Human Mentoring.

In education policy circles, there’s a lot of enthusiasm regarding the promise of AI-enabled tutoring. After all, a huge stumbling block for tutoring has been the limited number of affordable, reliable, and skilled tutors. That’s why ubiquitous AI could be such a game-changer. But there’s reason to fear that the excitement of AI-enabled tutoring will distract us…

By Frederick M. Hess

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…

By Ian Rowe

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…

By Ian Rowe | John Bailey | Robert Pondiscio | Jessica Schurz

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…

By Ian Rowe | John Bailey | Robert Pondiscio | Jessica Schurz

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…

By Nat Malkus | Cody Christensen

August 30, 2022

Biden’s Student Loan Debt Plan is Driven by Politics, Not Economics

On Wednesday, President Biden announced his long-awaited plan to cancel student loans — effectively wiping away up to $10,000 for borrowers with individual income below $125,000 (and couples with joint income below $250,000). The administration’s plan forgives up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients under the same income limits. The move, which will cost taxpayers…

By Beth Akers