Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.

#polisky share far and wide: @apsa.bsky.social Statement on the Proposed Elimination of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation apsanet.org/wp-content/u...

en route to the annual @aeraedresearch.bsky.social conference, and I am wildly excited to share that I will be joining @bowdoincollege.bsky.social this summer as an assistant professor of education politics + policy!

This @bostonreview.bsky.social piece by @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social is an absolute must-read, as are many of the responses to it. Spread this one far and wide.

omg the original post, not as the printout version (for ease of reading)

incredible opportunity in the politics of education!

If you are working on course design this week, and you teach a lot of students, let me recommend this guest post on my blog from three fantastic instructors who are pursuing innovative grading methods in their large lectures. It's a lot of work, but alternative grading can be done in big classes!

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

“One way to fight a profit-driven system that treats people as disposable is to instead treat people as redeemable. Solidarity means not writing anyone off completely, not throwing anyone away. It holds out hope that systems & individuals can change." Officially out in paperback as of yesterday.

Should Project 2025 be required reading for high schoolers? In our new article, @abigailrd.bsky.social and I explore two ways for teachers to bring challenging texts into the classroom. www.socialstudies.org/social-educa...

Blue states should make democracy the prevailing theme of the upcoming school year. Not just civics/social studies classes, but democracy-reinforcing lessons & experiences integrated throughout the curriculum. Boldly educate through the crisis, don't leave children in despair, teach a better way.

This is a must-read: The Trump administration's use of anti-semitism to attack immigrants and higher education mirrors plans by a group of Christian nationalists in the Heritage Foundation (which produced Project 2025). 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u...

The trope that universities are "dependent" on the federal government fundamentally misunderstands how vital this partnership has been for the US. The private sector can't replace it. If we kill it, we're all worse off. From @donmoyn.bsky.social and me: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...

Fight fiercely, America

Really smart approach that I will adopt as well.

🚨🆕 In a new NBER working paper out today (tinyurl.com/2vv3vnhf), with @wsandholtz.bsky.social we ask a 🔥question: Can controversial public policies end up being political successes even when they cause lots of backlash? And if the answer is yes, what drives pol success? A thread 👇

“The withholding of federal funds and the threat of withholding funds, without relevant and proper investigation into alleged violations or protections of due process, is a dangerous strategy used to discipline institutions of higher education for perceived political noncompliance."

Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century." snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Paul Peterson on the importance of USED's data collection operation

Most members of the public have little reason to be aware of 18F, or will understand what its loss signifies. So this post tries to capture that, by including the voices of those who worked there. First, from @waldo.net

House Rs just passed the budget resolution, the first step in their process to enact a bill that'd kick millions off Medicaid & cut SNAP down to just $1.60 per person per meal on avg while cutting taxes for the top 0.1% by $278k - all while increasing the debt 🧵on what's to come and WHERE TO FIGHT

There are no words that can adequately describe what losing ANES would mean

We’re focused on feeding our kids. Investing in our schools. Making sure child care is affordable. Regardless of the chaos unfolding in Washington, we’re making Minnesota the best state for kids to grow up.

This article--on the systematic dismantling of the NIH, NSF, and CDC--is a must-read not only for researchers and clinicians but for anyone who has ever gotten a vaccine, taken medication, read the results of a research study, or gotten tested for Covid, flu, or STIs. www.science.org/content/blog...

List includes “political”, “socioeconomic” and “historical”.

High-key, some of the street-level bureaucrats that I see being the bravest and putting up the most resistance to this administration right now are teachers. They are on the frontlines, working with some of our most vulnerable folks in society, and are not batting an eye at noncompliance.

a truly dystopian vision of teaching and learning in a pluralist nation www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

0.1% of our reps have had a baby while serving - so strange we have wildly inadequate pro-family policies

I am begging the national media to start taking this seriously. Stop buying the claims that the framing of "temporary" or "pause." They are altering the review processes of federally funded scientific research from merit-based peer review processes to political screening by ideologues.

stripping the public purposes of education from public education comes at you fast

excellent piece calling for us to shift our concerns about the negative impacts of social media away from the individual and - more appropriately - on the collective. our deep problem is “degraded democratic publics” more than misinformed and biased individuals.

A deep pathology of American folk constitutionalism is the belief that our system is the best because it was a huge innovation *in 1787* & was an inspiration to Europeans chafing under absolute monarchies for years after. But they've long surpassed us & we've learned nothing from their experiences

Spent the day talking to Europeans, and nobody can think of any precedent for what Musk just did to the US Congress. There is no businessman with that much power, the power to stop a routine spending bill, anywhere else in the democratic world.

As we race toward an authoritarian iceberg clearly aimed at crushing vital government programs and agencies, Biden has a choice: He can act swiftly to save lives or wring his hands and abandon the people he pledged to serve. newrepublic.com/article/1891...

NEW: Where the teens are YouTube 90% TikTok 63% Instagram 61% Snapchat 55% Facebook 32% (down from 71%) WhatsApp 23% X 17% (down from 33%) Reddit 14% Threads 6% report: www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

THREAD: How easy would it be to turn Voice of America into state controlled media? I wrote a book about this with @martinscott2010.bsky.social @melbunce.bsky.social, focusing on what happened to #VOA during the last #Trump administration.

important reminder that young people don’t consider political info as ‘news’ and have wildly different consumption habits than even a generation before them

I joined Generation Citizen’s New England Advisory Board because I support community-based civics, which we need now more than ever. Please donate to increase access to civics! secure.givelively.org/donate/gener... @givingtuesday.bsky.social #YouthLeadership #FutureInFocus #GenerationCitizen

bringing this monday-after-break snack/nap-before-8am energy with me to campus today

Looking to organize in defense of public education? @jenniferberkshire.bsky.social and I created a reading guide for The Education Wars.

Got a new piece up at the Guardian about how Democrats underestimated the opposition, overrated their own GOTV efforts, and ignored the year-round issue-based organizing that's needed – and that is changing minds and elections in the places where it is happening. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Starter pack for those interested in the politics of education, loosely defined. Please let me know if you'd like to be added (and forgive omissions!). Thanks! go.bsky.app/4LxftVF

Thoughtful piece in the @chronicle.com talking to professors (including me) about how they adjusted their teaching plans the day after the election. A range of attitudes here, but a lot to think about as we'll surely have more disruptive news days ahead. www.chronicle.com/article/how-...

Not Deliverism. Not Popularism. Partyism. Pete Davis - www.thenation.com/article/poli... Ned Resnikoff resnikoff.beehiiv.com/p/the-party-... and me - goodauthority.org/news/popular... - with closely overlapping arguments today.

Two things I'd change, based on canvassing this year: 1. Qualitative methods training for canvassers (eg, rapport-building, probing, fieldnote writing) 2. A text box in the app to share open-ended insights (for qualitative analysis later) A short 🧵 1/

Apparently I am in an election 2024 starter pack, so for my new followers, please enjoy this thread about "women voting like their husbands" as we wait for the returns to come in. #election2024

Abortion bounties, book bans, forcing families with trans kids to flee their homes: Republicans are building a model of govt that forces people to live and act how conservatives want, enforced by the fear that anyone can be an informant. A Snitch State (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

obviously my favorite media rn is Marcus eloquently critiquing the vp debate and laying down the importance of civics not all heroes wear capes youtu.be/kbCpRr0UcMA