Some students get tutoring but end up as ‘intervention lifers.’ This common sense tactic could help. - via @ericameltzer.bsky.social
#EdResearch #EdPolicy #EduSky
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/20/t...
Note that the Nature study selected just a handful (7) of education research journals based on an "informal review." It did not include what I would consider the top empirical-focused ed journals in the field, "Economics of Education Review" and "Education Finance and Policy."
There is in fact a lot of very high-quality education research out there. Just peruse one of the biggest repositories of empirical evidence here: edworkingpapers.com.
The typical paper does *not* look anything like Jo Boaler's work.
Two things are true here.
First, lots of education research is of disturbingly low-quality — and that's a real problem for the field. But second, painting with such a broad brush about a large, intellectually diverse field is not right.
bsky.app/profile/bren...
it's funny that circa Race to the Top, the narrative was that nothing in education has worked—and that's why we need these reforms. It was Ravitch et al saying well scores have been going up. But now the narrative is that actually everything pre-RTTT ed reform did work after all!
Terminating civil rights agreements could have ripple effects far beyond those cases or even transgender students as a group. “Once you open that door to something that is unprecedented, where does it end?" one longtime OCR employee asked. www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/14/t...
Good stuff and I look forward to reading your book!
I actually see bipartisan ed reform as somewhat more feasible if a president champions it (which is not likely but plausible especially because of the elite media narrative that has emerged).
I totally agree. but think-tank chatter can in fact proven deeply influential to real schools. this is how we got No Child Left Behind (which basically came from a think tank white paper) and Race to the Top (the teacher eval component also came from think tank white papers)
I hear you, but this was an analytical piece and the fact is that Emanuel is representative of a narrative that has dominated elite mainstream media for the last couple of years. I wasn't necessarily endorsing that narrative and in fact I pointed out where it's wrong.
New: There's an effort to reassemble the bipartisan school reform coalition that once dominated Washington.
Will it work? I look at why it might and why it might not.
These ideas are dominating the media narrative but it's not clear they have a real constituency.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/14/b...
NEW Just a few years ago Sal Khan was predicting that AI was poised to revolutionize education. But his experience launching an AI-powered tutor, Khanmigo, has been sobering, he says.
The hope that it would quickly become a super-tutor still seems a long way off.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/09/s...
thank you! I love producing great #content
NEW Just a few years ago Sal Khan was predicting that AI was poised to revolutionize education. But his experience launching an AI-powered tutor, Khanmigo, has been sobering, he says.
The hope that it would quickly become a super-tutor still seems a long way off.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/09/s...
this is pretty unfair
that's part of it. but what I think is weird is how nearly unanimous think tank folks are on CSR when the evidence is equivocal and open to interpretation. eg www.nber.org/papers/w2419... empirically minded people can come to different conclusions here—but in think tank land they don't
in education, I sometimes think class-size reduction is the perfect example of this phenomenon (think tanks v. regular people). You can't find anyone in the D.C. think tank world who is for big cuts in class size, but regular parents and teachers love this idea.
New: When one teacher totally dropped ed-tech from his classroom, teaching and learning became harder. That might be why it's been successful.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/07/t...
The caveat is that special education entails a large increase in funding for a student's education, so in some ways it's not all that surprising that it works. The unanswered question is how to make the system work better.
Special education is one of our country's biggest investments—but does it actually work?
Yes! According to a rigorous new study. Identification for services can fundamentally alter a student's trajectory.
Via @joshua-goodman.com, et al.
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/special-ed...
Not to my knowledge. Most studies are of discrete tech products — not tech vs. no tech, which is really what we need.
It only required a $10 million donation
And check out this excellent write-up by @mattbarnum.bsky.social:
cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/special-ed...
Pressured to exclude some high school students from career and college-credit opportunities, nearly every school district in Virginia agreed in order to keep federal money flowing.
Important work here from @mattbarnum.bsky.social and @lilyalta.bsky.social
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/03/27/t...
At least three states have taken steps to restrict undocumented high school students’ access to dual enrollment/career-technical education programs, according to documents reviewed by Chalkbeat. In Virginia, the policy was reversed following Chalkbeat inquiries.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/03/27/t...
NEWS—
The Trump administration has made more progress than previously known chipping away at Plyler v. Doe, the decision guaranteeing public education access to undocumented students.
www.chalkbeat.org/2026/03/27/t...
"The chain of events in Virginia shows the compromises school districts were willing to make to keep federal money flowing." Exclusive reporting from @mattbarnum.bsky.social and @lilyalta.bsky.social: www.chalkbeat.org/2026/03/27/t...
I think this is a totally reasonable theory, but we should be clear it's just that — a theory.
The size and direction of the effects of ed-tech and eased school-level accountability are both generally ambiguous empirically, imo.
bsky.app/profile/matt...
on a different point the thing about CA spending more of its GDP on education is technically true but look at the graph. something is odd here! Maybe this jump is real but I imagine @schoolfinance101.bsky.social would worry this is some weird data quirk and say wait to see what next year looks like.
(To be clear, this does not speak to the merits of particular policies, just preferences of voters.)
Sources:
edchoice.mcdatahub.com/edchoice/Rep...
www.winningtheissues.org/wp-content/u...
data.ddhq.io/polls/2026/0...
napolitannews.org/posts/on-par...
