How Teaching History Can Help Our Terrible Reading Scores: The narrative appeal of the past and application to present civic concerns has common cause with building literacy. bit.ly/4dQ2vQh

Teen Boys Are Gambling. A Lot. The tidal wave of legal sports betting has easily infiltrated schools and swept up boys. There’s still time for commonsense guardrails and effective education. bit.ly/4uuZJqQ

A Bad Supreme Court Decision Is Hard to Undo: As states look to challenge Plyler v. Doe on educating children of unlawfully present parents, the court will need to confront its shaky constitutional grounds. bit.ly/4e3TrIR

The Brain That Sees Patterns: For too long, teachers have been asking struggling readers to guess at words instead of helping them to learn the code. bit.ly/3R9ilOy

"Nearly all states have passed 'science of reading' laws, and most researchers and educators now agree students need to learn letters and sounds explicitly and systematically to become proficient readers." bit.ly/4vgRsaI

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Patrick Graff, a Senior Fellow with the American Federation for Children, is this week's guest on the Education Exchange podcast. bit.ly/4njmdZ4

Can Banning Cellphones Save Student Learning? Evidence from Florida, home of the first statewide mandate. bit.ly/4v2EWLp

Five Lessons for School Reformers: 2026 Edition. As K–12 reform heats back up, what can we learn from the last time the movement was riding high? bit.ly/48Sj64z

What If a Physician Prescribed a Soccer League Instead of Therapy? “Social prescribing” tries to put struggling teens into activities instead of therapy. It should work, so why hasn’t it yet? bit.ly/4cSYmMr

New Caps on Federal Student Lending Could Impact Schools of Education: Expensive institutions may need to reckon with OBBBA’s effort to rein in the nation’s $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. bit.ly/3QPtYKe

High School Reform for Dummies: “Mere knowledge” is getting sidelined at innovative models that embrace a vaporous notion of success, leaving students and society vulnerable in the “age of AI.” bit.ly/4cQ8mWE

Governors Can Fix Higher Ed: A generation ago, state leaders collaborated to fix a K–12 nation at risk. Universities today need the same gubernatorial guidance. bit.ly/3QUwuyN

Apprenticeship Should Be a Centerpiece of Workforce Pell: The earn-and-learn expansion of federal Pell Grant eligibility offers policymakers an opportunity to leverage our most promising workforce pathway. bit.ly/3QEQ2XS

Hope or Hype? What to Make of Yale’s Report on Trust in Higher Ed. A valuable document has come out of New Haven, but will it make good on its promises? bit.ly/3OHb3ka

The proposals for overhauling the Institute of Education Sciences could address its operational inefficiencies but are unlikely to break through our ideological stalemate. bit.ly/42nJZtc

The Case for a National Assessment of Flourishing and Participation: Why the rebuilt IES needs a NAEP for 3 p.m. to midnight that’s anonymous and representative. bit.ly/4sHDSe1

The State of Education Politics Today: What does partisan polarization mean for schooling and higher education? bit.ly/41KpFSD

School-to-Work Programs Launch Students into Careers, but Maybe Not Far Enough. Although the pathway has been a boon to rural employers, it can limit the mobility of recent graduates. bit.ly/4vAXymt

Colorado’s Small Rural Districts: A Potent Source of Education and Community. Overlooked and undervalued, three remote school districts show what could be possible with even more support from the state. bit.ly/3Ogx3SJ

The Battle Hymn of the Refugee Teacher: The explosive growth of classical education is luring teachers from traditional district schools—and reminding them why they became teachers in the first place. bit.ly/4tJmjeq

GSA Boss Kendi: “What Was Good for the MAGA Goose Is Now Good for the Anti-Racist Gander.” AOC administration’s chief bureaucrat uses Trumpian precedent to bring the Glorious People’s Revolution to campus. bit.ly/4chV1or

Amber Northern, a senior advisor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, joins the Education Exchange to discuss efforts on reforming the Institute of Education Science. https://bit.ly/4sXIxtt

The End of Disparate Impact? How changes to federal policy on what counts as discrimination will affect schools. bit.ly/4mokX6v

Admissions Officers Beware: Some Advanced Placement Scores Are Inflated. Most frequently taken exams scored under new, relaxed system. bit.ly/4mgIvu2

AP Exams Are as Rigorous as Ever: College Board employs evidence-based standards setting to ensure pass rates are commensurate with student learning. bit.ly/4vjiiiv

The Cost of Over-Teaching Phonics: In teaching reading, don’t miss the forest for the trees. bit.ly/4vgRsaI

Education Innovation and the Search for Transformational Solution-ness: Paul Banksley argues for the freedom to paint in shades of pastel possibility. bit.ly/4vasZny

"School leaders at the wealthiest public middle school in the nation’s capital told parents that reading short passages will better prepare students for high school. The rationale for this change fails even a basic smell test." bit.ly/4qRUG26

Universities are perceived ideologically biased and extremist, but the data paints a different picture. Hoover's Paola Sapienza discusses how political opinions are represented on colleges, with more students closer to the center than not. Listen to the conversation via @educationnext.bsky.social

“We talk endlessly about the deficits K–12 and college students have in learning, skills, and finances. We talk much less about the missing ingredient that converts credentials into a career: social capital.” bit.ly/4brLwCO

If you are enjoying what you read here, consider subscribing to the web content of Education Next and begin receiving the latest education news, opinion, research, reviews, and podcasts delivered weekly to your inbox. bit.ly/3FT6aQc

"For many years, education researchers have puzzled over a common phenomenon known as the 'fadeout effect'—that is, that the benefits of education interventions, such as early childhood enrichment programs, often diminish or disappear." bit.ly/3OaOdAJ

Hot Takes on AI and Education: Sorting through the brilliance, the buzz, and the bluster. bit.ly/41AhdVX

The Classical Learning Test Takes Aim at the SAT–ACT Duopoly: The upstart assessment is making inroads in the college admissions game. bit.ly/4bMiNJb

How Democrats Lost the Plot on Schools—and How to Get It Back. Despite polling showing progressives maintain a slight edge on education, public trust in the party has plummeted. bit.ly/3PyAYKQ

Rediscovering Knowledge as the Key to Reading: Two champions of knowledge-rich instruction reflect on its current momentum. bit.ly/4t562jF

The Consequences of Shattered Trust: Populism, identity politics, school closures, and financial irresponsibility have taken their toll on public confidence in American education. bit.ly/4bsWsS2

"Central Wake is a small public charter school that provides a personalized approach to learning for students who have dropped out of high school or are on the verge of doing so." bit.ly/4l5CgIZ

The Dumbing Down of Advanced Placement Tests: High school grade inflation imposes long-term harms, new research shows. bit.ly/3P7FFey

The Social Wealth Gap: Many students lack the social connections that lead to better outcomes. Schools can help make them. bit.ly/4brLwCO

No Homework? No Problem. Eminent ed school dean Smug Snidely sees the decline in take-home assignments as allowing students more time to be their authentic selves. bit.ly/4sdywrF

Restorative Justice Didn’t Deliver. Why? Teachers say focusing on students’ social and emotional wellbeing to address discipline has left classrooms harder to manage than ever. bit.ly/4bpa3Zi

Don’t Just Fight Teen Screen Time—Fund the Alternatives. A solution for the Anxious Generation is hiding in plain sight: Education Freedom Accounts. bit.ly/4lpXm4T

Logged In, Tuned Out: Fifteen years and billions of dollars later, what has learning tech accomplished? bit.ly/4bbVQyB

Will the Science of Reading Deliver This Time? It’s one bandwagon that might be worth jumping on, but it’ll need to steer around some potholes. bit.ly/4swv1w5

Don’t Call Them the Underdogs: New film gives competitive students of Washington Urban Debate League their due and others hope for the future of civic engagement. bit.ly/47csGOG

School Choice or School Spending? Florida’s 15-Year Experiment Points to the Answer. Scaling choice in the Sunshine State is found to be at least 11 times more cost effective in improving public school student performance than simply spending more. https://bit.ly/4siiFaQ

At-Risk Students Get Second Chance at North Carolina Charter School: Drop-out recovery program lends connection, support, and a better shot at success. bit.ly/4l5CgIZ

The Education Exchange: Virtual Learning Must Be a Choice, Not the Only Option. Unfairly blamed for pandemic learning losses, digital instruction boasts many unsung benefits. bit.ly/3MXcLgc