Studying the First Year of Trump’s Second Term: The Renewed Importance of Participatory Governance The first year of Trump's second administration has marked a sharp departure from six decades of federal education policy. This policy brief examines how the administration has expanded executive auth...

Alright, so after many many drafts, my NEPC education “policy review” covering Year I of Trump II is out.

A “Not great, Bob!” gif might have served as well. I end up arguing that doing the life-giving work of good education requires intensely local effort in a newly obvious kind of way.

Here’s why Detroit’s state funding for school safety and mental health has more than doubled The extra funding Detroit is receiving can be spent on everything from mental health training to firearms detection. The district has not said how it will spend the $10.3 million in additional funding.

The extra funding Detroit is receiving can be spent on everything from mental health training to firearms detection. The district has not said how it will spend the $10.3 million in additional funding.

Indianapolis Is Overhauling Its Education System. School Advocates Are Split. Charter and school choice advocates celebrate the change as common sense and a solution to financial problems for charters. Critics see an attack on traditional public schools.

New school district structure just dropped in Indianapolis. Seems like a combo of receivership and ‘recovery zone’ à la NOLA. www.governing.com/policy/india...

What you need to know about the closure of these 4 Detroit district schools J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School will all permanently close in June. What does that mean for students?

J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, Ann Arbor Trail Magnet School, Catherine Blackwell Institute, and Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School will all permanently close in June. What does that mean for students?

Disparities in childhood human capital investments in the United States - Nature Communications The authors examine public, private, and family time investments in children in the United States using ten nationally representative surveys between 2010 and 2023.

My first post here and I'm excited to share some recent work. A team of UMD researchers and I track investments in children to understand who gets left out and when.
1️⃣ Gaps exceed 50% before kindergarten
2️⃣ Public schooling narrows them at age 5
3️⃣ But disparities persist in type of services received

Line graph showing monthly absence rates for the 2024-25 school year. Two lines track students born inside vs. outside the U.S. from September through May. Both groups follow similar patterns through the fall, but diverge sharply at a vertical dashed line marking the January 20th inauguration. After that point, foreign-born students' absence rates remain elevated while U.S.-born rates decline as expected, eliminating the pre-inauguration gap.

NEW PAPER: We study the effects of immigration policy on student attendance in 2025. Students born outside the U.S. were 2.2pp more likely to be absent after Jan 2025 (a 37% increase).

That's ~2 extra missed days per semester.

LINK: edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1453
@annenberginstitute.bsky.social

🎉🏫New paper! 🏫🎉 "High Schools and the Uneven Rise in American Opportunity" by myself, Alison Doxey, and Ezra Karger (@ezrakarger.bsky.social)

www.peternencka.com/assets/high_...

www.nber.org/papers/w35068

Nice new resource from EdFund for researchers, policymakers, and advocates in education finance! Lots of information on school funding formulas, with attention to special populations ed-fund.org/learning-hub/ #EdResearch #EdPolicy

Too few kids are going to school every day in Detroit. A new city program aims to change that. Mayor Sheffield proposed a new initiative that will provide free bus service to city students. The Detroit City Council approved it Tuesday and students can begin riding for free on Wednesday..

Mayor Sheffield proposed a new initiative that will provide free bus service to city students. The Detroit City Council approved it Tuesday and students can begin riding for free on Wednesday..

We are excited to announce that applications for JEP 2026 are now open! If you are a current doctoral student or post-doc in education policy working on racial justice, this Institute shows how, in community, to develop your research agenda. Apply here through 6/1:
www.justeducationpolicy.org/apply

If AI really can augment teachers or supplement for tutoring functions maybe teacher/classroom time will be similar but schools overall will become more flexible in daily schedules, individualized learning time, breaking from strict age-based grade levels, etc.

No clue! I feel really uncertain about exactly how significantly AI will alter the economy, so not sure how major of a shock it’ll be to the system. As for micro I tend to agree with what you and other commenters here has suggested! Though I realized I skipped meso level (eg school organization)…

@matthewakraft.com what levels of influence did people refer to when responding to you? I think there's a micro and macro component. Macro: extent to which AI reshapes work/employment and related role of education. Micro: how technology shapes learning process, student-teacher interaction, etc.

@ajaysrikanthphd.bsky.social

So, I built a little BETA "Tinder meets ESA" application in which you can swipe left and right on Arizona ESA purchases that were part of the state's recent sample, and see if they were allowed or unallowed.

Enjoy! You can play two rounds right now. Comments welcome.

@ryandnowak.bsky.social - love the LOTR reference in your poster title! sorry I missed it, would love to read that work!

@erickaweathers.bsky.social I am sorry to miss this, but I’d love to read this work if it is available at any point!

Lots of great work! You can read ours here: edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1390

I chaired an awesome session on understanding + responding to student absenteeism this morning. The panel highlighted findings from qual + quant studies from 5 states, underscoring the role of policy + practice, sense making + discretion, and the need for resources in promoting attendance #AEFP2026

POSTDOC OPENING! We are hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow for a mixed-methods project aimed at supporting and researching implementation of high-quality preschool curricula. The position is 1-2 years and can be in person or remote.

More details here: edpolicy.umich.edu/what-we-do/j...

@andrewmcamp.com me too please! see you around the conference!

Excited to share a new research brief on absenteeism in NC through 2024-25! This mixed methods work shows that absence rates did not change much between '23-24 and '24-25, and describes key possible reasons why based on interviews with educators, parents, and students.

epic.unc.edu/wp-content/u...

Model Estimates of Poverty in Schools Model Estimates of Poverty in Schools (MEPS), developed by the Urban Institute, aims to address these data accuracy concerns by providing estimates of school…

SAIPE, or, if I want data for non-geographic LEAs, school-level MEPS from the Urban Institute, aggregated to district level. www.urban.org/projects/mod...

Contest — Have You Heard Podcast

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Calling all graduate students doing research on K-12 or higher education...

And for more detail on that inequality piece in Michigan

Michigan has made progress in the past few years thanks to increased education spending, but we have a long way to go to achieve adequate funding for high-poverty schools and districts.

The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems 2026 An evaluation of the K-12 school finance systems of all 50 states and D.C.

New/Update for 2026 www.schoolfinancedata.org/the-adequacy...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Revisiting Evidence on the Role of Funding Adequacy in School Reopening During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Response to Weber and Baker journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

"controlling for partisanship & union strength substantively attenuated...the association b/w funding adequacy & school reopening"

@alexmoran.bsky.social

@michaelpetrilli.bsky.social