This is beyond evil villain behavior. Just deeply inhumane and cruel.

Storytime - for those who seem to want to push some "southern" miracle in public schooling - using Mississippi as their exemplar, but implying "red state" strategies are the policy solution - First - Mississippi doesn't catch Mass or NJ - but states like AZ & FL fall to or below Mississippi:

Another quick story time - About those unsustainable "huge" staffing increases while public schools bleed enrollments. First - those enrollments (overall)

I am not being snarky. I need my colleagues who wrote on covid school lockdowns to engage with this. To be as loud as they have been about prior "learning loss." Hell, you can cite Tom & Mark's AERJ paper so you feel better that there's some econ somewhere in your argument.

This is really excellent, glad to see you given the space to go big with this @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...

“It’s going horrendously. I don’t mean there have been a few minor speed bumps; I mean the bus is pancaked, Wile E. Coyote–style, against the side of the mountain.“ www.theringer.com/2026/01/21/m...

New article with @schoolfinance101.bsky.social rethinking cause and consequence in U.S. school funding inequality, highlighting how an emphasis on consequences has sidelined deeper, historical causes, and why QuantCrit offers a path forward. Please read/share! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

more americans than ever say that ICE should be abolished www.gelliottmorris.com/p/support-fo...

These barbarians are destroying everything that makes society work. Kids can't go to school, patients can't go to the hospital. We are, in effect, paying them to wreck the basic infrastructure of the country

My kitchen table issue is “don’t shoot people at their kitchen tables”

This @schoolfinance101.bsky.social post on reforms for Florida makes a good point relevant to #ncpol efforts to limit property taxes: "The most effective form of property tax relief is increased state aid" schoolfinance101.com/2025/12/29/s...

I talked to him a while back for My Worst Moment and he talked about how comfortable he was improvising and that he improvised that super extra-long version of “shiiiiit” on “The Wire” Gift 🔗

A really important piece. The times when we have opened our country to talented people from around the world are among the moments when America has been truly great. Trump is destroying that legacy and fomenting unconscionable racism. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/o...

The people who profited most from the cancel culture/free speech panic were less interested in actual freedom of speech than establishing their own control over public discourse. You don't even have to take my word for it. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Oh good lord.

No it didn't, that isn't true.

In a terrible year, the Knicks are giving me some joy and hope.

incredible that the oldest scam in the book — “look away from the greed and poor leadership that destroy your chance to make a career, it is the [blanks] that stole your job!” — still works

actual numbers suggest that this narrative of systematic discrimination against white millennial men is bullshit.

A short piece on the tragedy at Brown University—and why we must refuse to accept mass school shootings as normal. matthewakraft.substack.com/p/the-insani...

You can see Robert's, my, some of my friends', and some of my enemies' thoughts at the link below! I'll note, while I'm sorted under "business issues," I highlighted in my response the way these issues create downstream effects with things like affordability.

Good quote from @jerseyjazzman.bsky.social in this depressing article about Montclair: www.nj.com/education/20...

New — What the internet backlash over rising remedial math at UC San Diego misses: Yes, it's a problem that math scores are going down, but selective, well-resourced universities are arguably best equipped to help students catch up. cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/what-the-i...

I would rather have a world where we all trust each other and accept that a few people will take advantage of it than a world where folks have to perform disability constantly in order to get the help they need. Let kids have an extra 30 minutes on the test, jesus fucking christ

Meanwhile, today, I release my first report on Florida School Funding: schoolfinance101.com/2025/12/02/f...

Very interesting Gelman blog suggesting that a good amount of the "Mississippi Miracle" is selection bias (holding back lowest performers, who then don't take the 4th grade test) rather than improved learning statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/12/01/h...

coming in March 2026

Excited to share that I'm writing a book: a history of the debates over funding public schools from the 1960's to now. (Yes the working title is tongue in cheek.) Now I just need to finish writing—stay tuned! And if you want to follow my work, you can do so here: www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

Turns out that holding kids back if they can't read by 3rd grade is good for temporary test score increases but terrible for the adults the kids become www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

White House Reclassifies Nursing As Hobby — theonion.com/white-house-...

sharing my most recent data/model driven thoughts on state school finance systems: schoolfinance101.com/2025/11/24/i...

I haven’t finished reading the full UCSD math report but it sure seems like higher ed admin like to blame all of their problems on K-12 teachers and systems and instead of meeting students where they are…

When we focus on the "brilliance" of unaccountable perpetrators, we are forgoing the brilliance of the young people deterred from their fields bsky.app/profile/coho...

🔥

Just came across another “Does money matter in education?” debate in the Year of Our Lord 2025. I’m tired

Cornell agreed to pay $30m, hand over admissions data with demographic breakdowns, produce annual "campus climate" surveys to check on antisemitism and changes "since October of 2023," and—here's the dumbest part they agreed to—that the govt can open new investigations whenever it wants. Appeasers.

Since we’re talking about affordability, a reminder that Trump’s culture war based economic policies are making everything more expensive for no discernable benefit to anyone but him www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

*whispers* you can continue to read me, the pundit who insisted the other pundits were wrong about these conclusions

Too early for final results, but we're seeing — once again — losses for conservatives in school board races in multiple states. Stay tuned.

First woman to be mayor of the motor city ✨ lots of work and challenges ahead but Detroit's never backed down from either

It is WILD to see Mira Nair and Prof. Mahmood Mamdani up there with their son the MAYOR-ELECT of New York City

BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students. Follow AP for live updates.

Grongratulations Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill. I'm looking forward to continuing the work of making NJ's education system even better, starting with adequate and equitable funding for all schools.

Definitely enjoyed this review but laughed out loud seeing someone cite a submission to the EdWorkingPapers site as an official report from the Annenberg Institute…

How Does New Jersey Fund Its Schools — And How Can We Make It Fairer? - New Jersey Policy Perspective - www.njpp.org/publications...

GASP

Super cool to see an Indian American (with a dad from Chennai!) become a head coach in the WNBA.

As I read this, I keep thinking over and over again about the two major groups I see in politics and policy spaces: folks who take opinion polls as gospel and folks who see them as indicators of what people believe at the moment that can be *shaped* into something else.

New Post: Jack Ciattarelli's Tax Plan Is a Disaster For Schools AND Taxpayers jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2025/10/jack... The Republican candidate for NJ gov wants to take away state aid from the districts that need it most and give it to districts that already have the lowest property tax rates.

you know this guy had to have made a huge number of enemies for oklahoma republicans to want to take him down (serves him right, he sucks)