Families across the U.S. are getting college acceptance letters — and tuition bills NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with economist Judith Scott-Clayton about the cost of college in the U.S. They discuss the difference between sticker and net price and the opaqueness of tuition costs.

I enjoyed hearing this interview with @jscottclayton.bsky.social out in the wild this morning. Thanks for breaking down college affordability so clearly!

The Politics of Administrative Ease: Public Access to Local Special Education Information What political and administrative resources contribute to the realization of rights in the United States? We examine this puzzle in the context of rights to education for students with disabilities by measuring the administrative ease of accessing local special education information: the extent to which governments actively reduce learning costs and make information accessible.

I'm excited to share our latest EdWorking paper, "The Politics of Administrative Ease: Public Access to Local Special Education Information" (w/ @lindseykaler.bsky.social
and co-authors).
edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1447
#SpecialEducation #EdResearch
@annenberginstitute.bsky.social

JESS IS SUCH A FUCKING GOOD EDITOR HOLY GODDAMN. You will love working with her, I guarantee it.

To this end, I am also looking for sources of public school fieldtrip frequency and payer (i.e. are parents paying out of pocket). The scholarly lit is pretty light on this topic.

If you have thoughts on how often/who pays based on your experiences as parent or teacher, would love to hear them

At least $7.2 million in taxpayer funds has been spent on LEGOs through Arizona's school voucher program, new public records obtained by 12News show 12News uncovered the spending -- including one family spending $30,000 on LEGOs -- after suing Superintendent Horne and Treasurer Yee to obtain ESA public records.

Since 2022, AZ taxpayers funded $7.25M in Legos that individual families kept for themselves.

Every AZ K12 teacher could have spent ~$125 on purchases *for their whole class, present & future* w those "take my toys & go home" Lego sets.

[And yes, my code for this analysis was straight bananas.]

One huge problem here is that the child, or children who were deprived of education (because this is how the money was spent) have no legal recourse for those damages - quantifiable, life long damages due to deprivation of education. All in the name of "parent empowerment"

Purchases from one Arizona ESA user, obtained by Craig Harris at Arizona 12 News

What makes the data recently obtained by AZ 12 News’ Craig Harris a new chapter in the ESA debate is the presence of unique IDs. Earlier data allowed statements about overall purchases; now you can see the set tied to a single account.

This account holder bought estrogen, progesterone & a pool.

In a new filing with the SEC, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, revealed that in 2025 it lost $712 million and brought in just $3.7 million in revenue.

Congratulations to @camarnzen.bsky.social‬ on his appointment as Assistant Professor of Political Science at North Central College! His research examines how education policy & institutions shape democratic participation, governance, & public life. We’re excited to see this work continue.

I have a pretty wild imagination and still have been blown away by what families are buying with Arizona ESA money.

BREAKING

Former ICE agent:

On my first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.

The Scarcity Loop: How School Choice Reshapes the Rationing of Education Jennifer L. Jennings Blackboard with chalk and eraser

Since so many of us are inside & online, it's auspicious the final book cover just came in.

NEPC Talks Education: An Interview With Erica Turner and Bryan Mann About Demographic Change, Segregation, and the Future of School Equity University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Erica Turner and Bryan Mann about how demographic change is reshaping American schools and how current policy respons...

February's NEPC Talks Education podcast is here! @cmsaldana.bsky.social interviews @ericaoturner.bsky.social and @bryanmann.bsky.social about how demographic change is reshaping American schools and how current policy responses can promote equity and integration. bit.ly/3OjNEEO

COULD have been written by AI...OR cut and pasted from any of a number of DER commentaries written in the 1990s. No serious reflection about anything that's come since...including the pro-choice movement's shift in emphasis from public school choice to unregulated private school choice.

What. On. Earth.

To put this in perspective, the federal government spends *a combined* $33 billion each year on Title I (for low income families) and IDEA (for special needs students).

You can't buy a rotisserie chicken for humans with SNAP $, but you can buy rotisserie chicken-flavored cat and dog toothpaste (last line) with Arizona ESA $.

No Chicken Left Behind, voucher version:

This is a small sample of chicken-related items Arizona auto-approved for Education Savings Account users.

Arizona has declined to release data showing what funds, if any, have been recouped through auditing.

Now do school vouchers

"Attendees engaged in ways that broke with long-standing behavioral norms, mirroring the current style of national politics. Negativity, insults, and even threats to elected leaders grew in frequency, leading to polarization and an us-versus-them atmosphere" www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Mike Johnson always falsely states proposals he wants to bat down. No one has proposed that ICE agents wear their addresses. The proposal is that dress and act exactly as they did from the founding of the agency until Stephen Miller decided to give it a makeover

And this is by design. Voucher folks were gung-ho to use same scale as public schools until ~2015-6 when horrific Louisiana and Indiana results came out.

They even tried to quash those results for a year or more.

Since then, the strategy has been kill as many testing requirements as possible.

Jay Inslee @JayInslee X.com In the midst of ICE horror, the Senate needs to prohibit Trump from using ICE as a voter suppression tool. Senate Dems need to put into the approps bill a prohibition on ICE agents being near polling places. This is a must have. Last chance to do this.

This needs to happen at the very least

Trump administration concedes DOGE team may have misused Social Security data Some DOGE personnel had more access to data than previously acknowledged, according to a court filing.

Two DOGE members working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with a group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls"
www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Dang they should join some kind of treaty organization

How the Engagement of High-Profile Partisan Officials Affects Education Politics, Public Opinion, and Polarization Abstract. What happens to public opinion when prominent partisan officials intervene in education policy debates? We analyzed the results of eighteen survey experiments conducted between 2009 and 2021...

Great to see this paper finally in print (with my excellent co-author, Alyssa Barone)!

tl;dr: When high-profile partisan officials engage in ed policy debates, the chief consequence is increased polarization among the public along partisan lines

(surprising, I know)

direct.mit.edu/edfp/article...

The Politics of Education Lab

To ring in the new year, I'm excited to announce the launch of the Politics of Education Lab (PEdL) at the Stanford GSE. The goal is to advance understanding of the political dimensions of education policymaking to help policymakers and practitioners strengthen school systems.

pedl.stanford.edu

can we skip directly to November 2028?

Congratulations are in order for @mimiarnoldlyon.bsky.social who was awarded a research grant through the William T. Grant Foundation to study the impact of school board election timing policies on educational equity. Lyon and two fellow researchers were awarded $299,083 through the grant.

Washington DC’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (Vouchers for Low-Income Students to Attend Private School): high-quality RCT of students entering grades 2-12 in 2004-2005 found no discernible long-term impact on college enrollment rates. nospin.evidencebasedpolicy.org/articles/was...