This is my last week at the Wall Street Journal. I'll be returning to Chalkbeat to launch a new section focused on the big ideas and debates in American education. More on this soon! You can sign up to keep following my work here: www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

New: A look at the latest 12th grade test scores, which paint a grim picture.* *Officials acknowledge, though, that rising graduation rates could complicate the longer-run interpretation of these results if more low-performing students are now taking the test. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: The Trump administration is now targeting race-neutral efforts to achieve racial diversity. This marks a striking shift from what some opponents of affirmative action had previously argued. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Our look at huge changes to civil rights enforcement for schools: -A reversal in what's considered discrimination w/ reverse racial discrimination and transgender sports cases prioritized -Severe staff cuts leaving thousands of others unresolved. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

New: The Education Department's cuts have left the niche, government-backed "industry" of education research in a dire state. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

What are the top books assigned in U.S. high schools? Turns out they're mostly the same as thirty years ago. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: SCOTUS clears the way for Trump's deep staffing cuts at the Education Department www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New: Schools and education leaders are in a bind this summer after learning last week that several billion dollars of federal funding may not show up after all. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: Democrats find themselves increasingly divided over how to approach K-12 education. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: The school choice/voucher proposal embedded in the tax bill would expand subsidies for private schools—and savvy investors. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

My full interview with Linda McMahon. www.wsj.com/video/series... A few interesting tidbits: -She briefly appears to conflate foreign 'activists' and 'terrorists' (2:00) -She reiterates that only Congress can close USED (10:30) ...

New: Linda McMahon is seeking to shutter the Education Department—while also expanding its reach into schools and universities. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Big day for education law. SCOTUS deadlocks 4-4 on religious charters, meaning this issue remains unsettled www.wsj.com/us-news/law/... Lower court halts Trump's effort to dimantle USED. Admin says they'll appeal www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New: "Grading for equity" continues to spread in schools—but does it work? www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: Are charter schools really public? Can they be religious? The Supreme Court is about to decide. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New from me: K-12 schools and leaders have, to a significant extent, been resisting Trump's various efforts to remake education. It's not clear how long this can last, though. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: Inside the dismantling of the Education Department that's already begun. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New: Trump signed the long-awaited (and previously reported!) executive order aimed at abolishing the Education Department. Here's what it means and what it doesn't mean. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

NEW from me and @deepa.bsky.social: AI-powered cheating remains a major problem in schools and colleges. There's good reason to worry that more students are outsourcing their work and learning to a chatbot. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chat...

Today, @mattbarnum.bsky.social and I detailed how educators are still struggling with the fallout of AI in their classroom with students surrounded by a thicket of conflicting advice about AI’s use as well as companies explicitly trying to get them to cheat via social media ads.

In change of plans, White House is now saying not expect the executive order today. bsky.app/profile/matt...

Scoop: A draft executive order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” based on “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” It could come as soon as today. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

NEW: Peggy Carr, commissioner of the Nat'l Center on Education Statistics and a two-decade+ veteran at Educ Dept, was abruptly put on leave today. She runs NAEP, the national math and reading tests seen as important marker of educational progress www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

New: Chicago Public Schools' "Black Student Success Plan" faces a civil rights challenge. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Thoughtful piece by @marklieberman.bsky.social on the complexity of linking school funding and NAEP scores. www.edweek.org/policy-polit...

New from me: Regular civil rights enforcement at the Education Department has been curtailed in recent weeks because some staff face a ban on external communications, sharply limiting their day-to-day work. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New: Why Trump's Department of Education has proactively launched an investigation into the bathroom policies of a single Denver high school. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: The Trump admin is weighing executive orders aiming at dismantling the Department of Education. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New: After pandemic-era declines, there's been little progress on national tests since—in fact reading scores have fallen even further. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Many ed-tech companies say their products lead to remarkable gains in student learning, citing internal analyses. But as we show in our recent piece—examining the popular digital learning platform IXL—there is often more than meets the eye to these claims. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New from me: Why there are so few male teachers in U.S. public schools—and why have their ranks been declining in recent decades? One theory: the teacher pay "penalty" is worse for men than for women. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: In recent years, there has been huge growth of technology in schools—walk into a random American classroom and there's a good chance you'll see students on screens. But is this good learning? I dig in with @wsj.com colleagues. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Yikes. Here is the full post on this: www.studentclearinghouse.org/news/nationa... bsky.app/profile/jill...

NEW: Girls have consistently lost more academic ground than boys since the pandemic. This is clear across a wide range of tests, but has gotten little attention to date. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

The ESSER "fiscal cliff" happened with a whimper, not a bang. Why? a) it's been bad! just not widely reported on b) it will be bad next year! c) it's been kinda bad but not disastrous d) it's not been bad b/c school leaders planned for it e) it's not been bad b/c state/local money filled gaps

The other interesting implication here—even holding aside change over time—is that the 18-24 cohort does not look much worse than older cohorts. That said, the U.S. as a whole doesn't look good compared to other countries. www.wsj.com/us-news/amer... bsky.app/profile/matt...

Before the misPIACCery (?) goes too far, I wanted to note: "Comparisons of 2023 results with 2012/14 and 2017 PIAAC assessments need to be made with caution due to differences in the assessments and scoring methodology."

So the new PIACC data shows that older adults—who of course weren't in school during the pandemic—have also experienced steep "learning loss." Not quite sure what to make of that! nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaa...

New: U.S. scores fall sharply on international 4th and 8th grade math tests. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New from me– A Trump-backed private school choice plan could face skepticism from a surprising source: red-state voters www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

WSJ explainer on Trump's plans for the Department of Education. @mattbarnum.bsky.social's framing of soft vs. hard abolish and the accompanying visual (around 2:45 in the video) provide a very clear, concise summary of the potential scenarios. www.wsj.com/video/series...

Trump to nominate Linda McMahon for the education department that he wants to eliminate: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

I recently finished Benjamin Herold's book Disillusioned. It's terrific—a wonderfully written, thought-provoking epic read about schools, suburbs and much more. www.benjaminherold.com/disillusioned

New: American school systems have a growing and difficult problem — too many schools and not enough students. But closing under-enrolled schools is not easy. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New: Religious charter schools could upend the charter school movement — and some of the leading opponents are existing charter movement leaders. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

It's a surprising and a remarkable fact: most public school teachers don't get paid parental leave. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New teacher attrition data from Texas: teacher exits are down from last year but still substantially higher than any year on record pre-pandemic. tea.texas.gov/reports-and-...

Teacher salary lags significantly behind that of most other professionals. Schools—public and private, alike—have prioritized hiring more staff rather than raising teacher pay. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

New from me: Why teacher salaries have been flat for three decades. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Sal Khan has suggested that AI in education could eventually boost student learning two standard deviations—vaulting the average kid to the 98th percentile—citing a study from 1984. The challenge: this study has rarely if ever been replicated. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...