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…
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…
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…
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…