2026 starting strong! School Finance Regime Workshop organized by the best of the best @schooldaves.bsky.social @noranafaa.bsky.social at @univ-amu.fr

In the opening of @schooldaves.bsky.social’s new book, he invites us to “enliven the polis of policy—that is, to re-politicize policy and take it back from the technocrats” and I think that captures what the best education writing is doing now: humanizing policy contexts, making them legible

Oh my god I can't believe this meme is of someone arguing against paying more taxes for public schools @schooldaves.bsky.social buttondown.com/davidibacker...

DIALECTICS FOR KIDS yesssssss dialectics4kids.org/index.htm

Next Monday at 2pm I’ll be at the Ecole Des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris to talk about US school finance, with the great @esthercyna.bsky.social enseignements.ehess.fr/2025-2026/ue...

I know there’s regime change happening but if any followers or friends of friends are in Paris next weekend DM me! I’ll be around with some free time and would love to meet up.

The private school connection always gets me: “A man who would become the world’s most famous sex trafficker by the summer of 2019 had figured out a few things about the rich in the 1970s when he obtained a teaching job at an elite prep school.” substack.com/inbox/post/1...

Oil capex guidance is now a very big deal. #OOTT

I know there’s regime change happening but if any followers or friends of friends are in Paris next weekend DM me! I’ll be around with some free time and would love to meet up.

For anyone following the 2025 xmas critical theory kerfuffle (notably against the backdrop of regime change in Venezuela) www.counterfire.org/article/not-...

As a big Libby user I’m pretty stoked there are three ppl waiting for my book at the BPL.

“Most directly, we should not waste children’s time. The motivation for making school more rewarding and less stultifying should not primarily be its effect on outcomes later in life, but rather that childhood is itself part of life, a very important part.”

During Zohran’s speech you might have heard an air horn going off—I did, it was annoying but not that bad— apparently that was a small group of Zionist protesters.

Happy to be on this list!!

Gonna make a bunch of teachers mad but I guess the political calculus is that local control is too tough a fight or it benefits the people when the people’s candidate is in charge

They’re turning a third of the Netherlands’ pension system to “defined contribution,” which in my book I call “defined isolation” because it’s the opposite of solidarity. So it’s a bit rich that the official says they’re trying to keep some solidarity.

Samuels also has experience merging schools, a task that is often complex and controversial.

The reason this Harvard history professor decided he was done with one of the best and most privileged jobs in the world was, in his own words, because he was forced to lecture in a mask during peak Covid. I’m not making this up.

“In the case of subprime specifically, racialized norms of housing consumption are a dimension of the uneven distribution of the value of labor power.” www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This looks like an awesome course law.ucla.edu/academics/cu...

I don’t know how Chinese local govt debt works, but it’s increasing. Apparently they securitize stuff and sell the securities for liquidity.

It has been a bracing moment for American federalism, with both unprecedented efforts to extend executive control over state and local govts, novel forms of subnational resistance. Where is federalism going? Paul Nolette and I have edited a new issue of Publius on that question. Short thread:

We are joined by David I. Backer, associate professor of education policy at Seton Hall University, to discuss his new book: As Public as Possible: Radical Finance for America’s Schools (The New Press, 2025). moneyontheleft.org/2025/12/01/r...

grateful to @schooldaves.bsky.social for reposting this right when I sat down at the laptop. I’m finishing an educational “policy review” of the first year of Trump II, and I have to make some recommendations for LEAs/SEAs—which come down to avoiding capture. Even for ppl aligned with admin goals:

“the only way to make American schooling as equal as possible is to make it as public as possible: Pool the taxes, the funding, the administration, the risks―and keep schools, teachers, and students far away from capture by private interests or discipline by private financial markets.” Hell yes.

Who wants a monster pine cone massage by a guy in a hat at the Mermaid Spa in Brooklyn?

You’ll never guess who’s number one

They’re not perfect, but golly, public universities are one of the best engines of economic mobility we have

New @barbarabiasi.com just dropped! Looks like a banger! www.nber.org/papers/w34590

What’s happening in Yelm, WA www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8yAb7VC/

Sliding in to offer folks have been poking around this for a while and it hits upon a bunch of different stuff and at its core, it's schoolmen phenomenon AKA the old boys club in education. Which is to say, happy to hitch my wagon to that train. www.google.com/books/editio...

This sounds like a research project, and I am IN.

I do wonder what the total public expenditure is on parasitic grifters is, not just in education but public coffers more generally.

SCANLON: For many young people, “education has become a liability. .. Early career roles have eroded.” Homeownership “hasn’t budged.” “.. prediction markets, sports betting and cryptocurrency start to look like some of the only levers they have left.” @kyla.bsky.social www.wsj.com/personal-fin...

David Brooks's history of blaring his sexism through his writing is long. Here's a 20-year-old piece my students used to tear to shreds wherein he blames teachers (aka women) for teaching womanly books to boys and so turning them off reading and school generally. Oh, and supports Larry Summers.

Not AI.

I saw a school bus with a Subway ad on it. That's a first, but budgets are tight.

I’ll be the guest speaker at Public School Strong’s next organizing meeting in January, check it out www.mobilize.us/raceforward/...

Thinking of Thea Hunter today www.theatlantic.com/education/ar...

🫡 thanks for writing!

Why is it that big private banks can take in billions in interest payments from the Fed on their reserves, while it refuses to provide any money for public school districts? JP Morgan made $15bn in 2024 alone! Meanwhile, schools pay 8-10% of their budgets on debt service.

Ursinus College in PA, where I’ve colleagues, is laying off a quarter of their faculty. Subscribe to this pod to support one of them! ordinaryunhappiness.com/posts/higher...

@schooldaves.bsky.social did a book talk for a bunch of public school teachers wrestling with questions of public finance and schools here in NYC, one I’m sad I missed. Figured worth mentioning here since I think it speaks to the nature of his commitment to this work! Excited to read for myself.

My dad liked this review lol, but he said the critique of my style wasn’t quite right and I think I agree? I def use a bloggy-talky voice that wanders all over the place, which, when juxtaposed with finance policy, can be jarring. Advait’s point about frameworks is the best critique imho.

The climate crisis & cost of living crisis are deeply intertwined. Donate $5 to CCI today to help us reach our goal of $10,000 by Dec 31 and fuel climate policy that materially benefits the working class. secure.actblue.com/donate/clima...