All Research
Op-Ed
The Cautionary Tale of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan
…but especially schools for underprivileged kids —need. Plans for curriculum and school discipline seemed at best unclear. When the Journal asked my American Enterprise Institute colleague Rick Hess about this…
Article
There’s a Lot of Talk About “Career Readiness.” Have We Thought It Through?
After a decadelong hiatus, it feels like “school reform” has gained new momentum (for better and worse). We see it in reading instruction, new school models, career pathways, and more….
Op-Ed
Are Big Families the Solution to Declining Fertility?
…start having children, the thinking goes, a more fruitful approach is to encourage current parents to add to their brood. As pronatalists Daniel Hess and Paul Morland enthusiastically suggest, “People who…
Op-Ed
Snow Excuses
The past few years have featured a lot of hand-wringing about chronic absenteeism and the insanity of extended pandemic school closures. Most everyone now agrees that academic growth, social development, and mental health call for…
Op-Ed
AI in K–12: A New Year Reality Check for School Leaders
Educators have a lot of questions about AI. Well, when I want practical insight on ed tech, I frequently turn to the ever-thoughtful Michael Horn—lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School…
Op-Ed
Can School Reform Be Bipartisan Again?
Mike Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, recently launched a new Substack, SCHOOLED, that he hopes might help foster common ground on issues like accountability, charter schooling, gifted education,…
Op-Ed
Parent-School Partnerships Can Drive Academic Gains. Here’s How
A couple of years ago, in The Great School Rethink, I wrote at some length about the need to reimagine the parent-teacher partnership. In our era of chronic absenteeism, rampant misbehavior,…
Op-Ed
Finding Common Ground on Trump’s College Compact
As with so much in 2025, the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” provoked predictably tribal reactions from college leaders and politicians. As predictable? What risks…
Op-Ed
What Could the New Federal Tuition Tax Credit Mean for School Choice?
Education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers, charter schools, home schooling, tutoring, course choice, dual degrees, and microschools are transforming K–12. In “Talking Choice,” Ashley Berner and I try to make…
Op-Ed
The Golden Age of Public Housing—and Why It Didn’t Last
…for a legendary anti-lynching crusader, was later captured as a drug-infested, racially segregated dystopia by the filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. It did not start out that way, though. “Life in Ida…
Op-Ed
How Can Education Savings Accounts Serve Students with Special Needs?
As education savings account (ESA) laws have been adopted by a number of states in the past few years, many observers have wondered how these work in practice. One huge area of…
Op-Ed
A Hidden Explanation for the Wealth Gap on Racial Lines That Emerges in the Push to Promote Public Housing
…Detroit that would be named for Frederick Douglass. To clear the way for this and many similar projects named for important black historical figures such as Ida B. Wells, James…