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January 24, 2025
Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends
…of the children we care for, or the future of the economy we depend on, national test scores are valuable indicators. However, although national test scores do provide strong evidence…
January 23, 2025
Four College Enrollment Trends to Watch
The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) published its biannual report on college enrollment trends this morning, providing a comprehensive look at how student numbers totaled up in fall 2024. NSC’s preliminary figures, released…
January 21, 2025
How Trump Can Permanently Fix the Student Loan Program
…on the nation’s finances, conservatives need to think about how to proactively stop bad loans from going out the door in the first place. The Biden administration’s surrender on loan…
December 18, 2024
Employers Should Drop Hiring Preferences for “Elite 34” Colleges
…if this change in hiring practices becomes a trend, it should be celebrated. A new study in Nature tells us why. The authors consider graduates of a group of 34 elite universities, including Ivy…
December 17, 2024
Make America Smart Again: The Jeopardy Test for Graduation
…last month to abolish a similar graduation requirement, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, whose adoption in 1994 coincided with that state consistently becoming the nation’s top National Assessment of Education Progress performer,…
December 11, 2024
US Students Best Other Nations—in Achievement Gap Growth
…other nationally representative assessments. What I want to look at today is whether these trends parallel what is happening in other countries. TIMSS is taken by hundreds of thousands of…
December 9, 2024
TIMSS Shows the Bottom Is Falling Out for US Test Scores
Last week’s release of 2023 scores from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)—an international assessment measuring fourth and eighth graders in math and science—offers a fresh look at…
November 25, 2024
Don’t Write Off Workforce Pell Grants
…that all federally-funded programs, short-term or not, meet adequate performance benchmarks or lose access to their taxpayer subsidies. The nature of innovation is that some new ideas will work, and…
November 21, 2024
A Consensus on Common-Sense Education Reform
Is common ground possible in an age of extreme polarization? Perhaps! “Toward a Potential Grand Bargain for the Nation” is a new report by a group of experts from think…
November 20, 2024
End Federal Loans for Graduate School
…similar metrics. Reformers should consider creating protections for private student lenders to employ such underwriting practices, which would encourage the market to grow. With the national debt standing at nearly…