Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
March 21, 2024
Key Points Read the full pdf.
March 19, 2024
Event Summary On March 19, Louisiana State Superintendent Cade Brumley, Nicole Neily of Parents Defending Education, and Derrell Bradford of 50CAN joined AEI’s Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane to discuss how conservatives can lead in K–12 education and make meaningful progress on addressing contemporary challenges. The conversation drew heavily from Dr. Hess and…
March 11, 2024
The venerable economist Milton Friedman once said, “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change.” That’s the impulse behind Winston Churchill’s admonition (later famously echoed by Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel): “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Well, welcome to the world of American higher education. Crippling tuition, bloated bureaucracies, huge rates of…
March 11, 2024
Fifteen years ago, AEI’s ever-prescient Charles Murray argued in Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality that too many students were going to college—that “college-for-all” loomed too large in K-12 schooling, distorted our priorities, and had fueled the neglect of career and technical education. That take was noxious to education advocates, philanthropists,…
March 11, 2024
Three decades ago, John Gray’s mega-hit book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, sold 15 million copies. The premise was simple: When we see the world in different ways, it’s easy to misunderstand or talk past one another. That insight applies emphatically in today’s very online world. In polarized times, it’s all too easy to…
March 6, 2024
It may come as a surprise, but the Biden administration has effectively abolished the federal student loan program. Well, at least if a “student loan program” is understood as one in which students borrow money and then eventually repay it. That program has been replaced by a perverse entitlement in which students borrow taxpayer funds,…
March 5, 2024
For two guys who just published a book about the need for a conservative vision for education policy, San Francisco has been a gift that keeps on giving. When we were writing the book, the school board, which adamantly refused to reopen schools for nearly a year, instead (unsuccessfully) devoted its energies to renaming dozens of schools — including those named for…
February 29, 2024
Americans disagree with one another about all manner of important topics when it comes to schools and schooling. That’s inevitable in a nation of more than 300 million people. And even good-faith disagreements will inevitably lead to a certain degree of conflict and strife. That’s part of what it means to live in a free…
February 22, 2024
Chronic absenteeism has become a grim reality across the nation. Nationwide, chronic absenteeism nearly doubled from 15 percent in 2018 to 26 percent in 2023. How bad are these numbers, really, and how can schools respond? My friend and colleague Nat Malkus has the most recent available numbers in his Return to Learn Tracker. In addition,…
February 22, 2024
Event Summary On February 22, Virginia Education Secretary Aimee Rogstad Guidera interviewed AEI’s Richard Hess and Michael Q. McShane about their new book, Getting Education Right: A Conservative Vision for Improving Early Childhood, K–12, and College. Dr. Hess and Dr. McShane discussed the opportunity for the right to step forward on education issues in the aftermath…