The U.S. Education Department is handing off some of its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the department. apnews.com/article/educ...

"Sold a Story" is again on the list of Apple Podcasts' most shared shows of 2025: www.apple.com/newsroom/202...

New Sold a Story podcast on the history of and recent cuts to education research, and I am HERE FOR IT. www.apmreports.org/episode/2025...

From @clpeak.bsky.social -- If it hadn’t been for legal action, the results of the largest study on reading might never have been released. But in response to lawsuits, the Department of Education said it would voluntarily reinstate the contract for the study: www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...

A lot of what we know as the science of reading was funded by the federal government. We’ve spent the last few months reporting on what the Trump administration’s cuts mean for that research. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts): www.apmreports.org/episode/2025...

New York City’s third-grade reading proficiency shot up nearly 13 points — to 58% — on this year’s state standardized test. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/n...

Excellent summary of the intellectual history of "cueing." These are ideas and citations @clpeak.bsky.social and I spent years poring over to make Sold a Story. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

"Adopting a new curriculum is only a first step. Real change is like training for a marathon: buying the right gear doesn’t build endurance." www.the74million.org/article/trul...

Research doesn't support using "multisensory" instruction to teach reading, but it's being legislated. "Not that doing multisensory things is going to be harmful," one expert said, but don't expect "those are going to make the difference." www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...

In 2014, 11% of children ages 0 to 2 in the UK spent one to three hours a day on a screen. By 2019, that percentage rose to 42%, according to the National Literacy Trust. www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...

Success for All, the school reform model featured in Sold a Story, received $13.5 million from an anonymous donor to expand to 150 more schools. www.the74million.org/article/scie...

NPR and three public radio stations sue President Trump, alleging his executive order to cut off federal funding violates the Constitution and their First Amendment rights. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/b...

“We’re talking about an entire generation of learning perhaps significantly undermined here,” one college professor said, of students’ reliance on ChatGPT. “It’s short-circuiting the learning process, and it’s happening fast.” nymag.com/intelligence...

Harvard officials were shocked that such an important letter — bearing the logos of three government agencies, with signatures of three top officials at the bottom — could be sent by a mistake. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/b...

For years, the country’s lowest-scoring students were steadily improving on national tests. Starting around 2013, something changed. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/u...

Sold a Story was featured in this weekend’s New York Times: “This American Public Media podcast lays out how a deeply flawed teaching method took hold despite having been widely debunked by cognitive scientists.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/a...

We need state curriculum maps for all states ASAP, to support researchers and parents, alike. My latest article includes links to info from the five states that have published curriculum maps, as well as a few additional sources from @clpeak.bsky.social and more.

New today from @clpeak.bsky.social. A look at a EdReports, one of the most powerful gatekeepers influencing the instructional materials schools buy. www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...

Sold a Story has a new mini-series. We found a high-poverty school district where nearly every kid can read well. They’ve been teaching the same way for 25 years. But a new law, inspired by our reporting, put that at risk. All three podcast episodes are out now.

NYT: The Education Department announced on Tuesday that it was firing more than 1,300 workers, effectively gutting the agency that manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/u...

DOGE is likely subject to FOIA, a federal judge ruled. The agency had argued it was acting as an advisor to the president, putting its records off-limits until at least 2034. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/u...

A new episode of Sold a Story is available now. Episode 11: The Outlier There's a school district in eastern Ohio where virtually all students become good readers by the time they finish third grade. How did they do it? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...

"If contracts tied to IES and NCES are indeed terminated, and its research becomes unavailable online, a trove of data gathered over many decades about the state of education in the U.S. could become difficult to access." www.npr.org/2025/02/10/n... @npr.org

The divide between academic haves and have-nots on the nation's report card was historic: Lower-performing fourth and eighth graders posted the worst reading scores in over 30 years. www.chalkbeat.org/2025/01/29/n...

The declines in students' reading scores started before the pandemic, continued during it and have persisted since. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Republicans in Congress have tried to defund public media for decades. Could they finally make good on their threat? www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/b...

Attorneys in Massachusetts just filed a class-action lawsuit against Heinemann and its authors Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell in state court over what they allege are “deceptive” and “defective” reading programs. www.apmreports.org/story/2024/1...