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Teaching Why We Fight to high schoolers My students love the book. One thing that jumps out is how clearly Blattman writes. For high school students who are encountering a big topic for the first time, clarity is incredibly important. The book really speaks to a wide audience. —Matt Cone, Carrboro High School, Carrboro, North […]
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Pupils at an elementary school work on math problems in a classroom.

To improve the inclusion of children with neurodevelopmental differences in mainstream schools, Cambridge researchers developed school-level education policy recommendations and resources that address barriers to learning and wellbeing.
The post Inclusive policies for schools appeared first on Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

What will make children go to school? The answer to that question used to be obvious. First, their parents. And then, if not, the law. But over the past few years, particularly since the pandemic and resulting lockdowns, some kids got out of the habit of going to school. And they are still not back.  […]
The post Make School Mandatory Again appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

Colleen Hroncich


The late Barbara Baker left behind quite a legacy. She was a first grade teacher in 1960 when she realized her incoming students were unprepared because her school district had dropped phonics. Despite being pregnant with her fifth child, Barbara quit teaching and started her own preschool in 1963. "I figured that if they learned phonics in preschool, no one could take that away from them," she said.
That modest beginning—half of the students in the first class were family and friends—ultimately launched Challenger School. Jeff Davis, whose own children attended Challenger, now serves as marketing strategist for the school. He says Barbara had a huge waiting list the next year and couldn't build fast enough to keep up with demand.
"Barbara was a powerhouse," according to Jeff. "She recognized that there was a window of opportunity with children that you really don't get again. She had worked as a public school teacher and had been on the Moreland School Board in California. She'd done what she could to try and improve things. But she realized these children's opportunity was passing and the slowness of the bureaucracy didn't satisfy her."
Because she wanted to focus on ensuring young children learned to read, Barbara stuck to preschool and kindergarten the first few years. But parents kept asking her to expand, so she did. She added elementary grades and opened new campuses. By the 1980s, Challenger School had added middle school classes as well.
"We built our own curriculum," says Jeff. "We'll pull in other sources as well from the main curriculum houses. We've had Saxon Math for years, for instance. It's all tailored by grade to fit what we are expecting our students to accomplish. Quite often the publishers are out of alignment with what we want to be accomplishing—usually several years behind where we're trying to be. So we customize it for where our students are based on testing we do."
Challenger's course of study is designed to form a foundation for students' future education. In keeping with Barbara's original vision, there is a heavy emphasis on reading since that is what equips students to pursue future interests on their own. Composition is stressed to ensure students can communicate clearly. Math, according to the Challenger outlook, is like literacy for numbers. Studying history helps students understand human action and its impacts. And a focus on logic gives students the tools to evaluate new ideas. Students don't learn these concepts in isolation—they are reinforced at multiple levels and across subjects. As students master these subjects, they get stronger in other areas.
Parents clearly like what Challenger School offers their children. There are now 27 campuses educating around 11,000 children across five states—California, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. Some locations offer only preschool and kindergarten, some go through 8th grade, and some offer something in between. The preschool/​kindergarten locations typically act as feeders for the other campuses initially and then may expand to additional grades.
This year, Challenger is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Barbara Baker remained active and involved with the school as CEO until she passed away in 2012. She was a pioneer in the realm of education entrepreneurship, and many thousands of children have benefited from her vision and tenacity.

The beginning of the new school year in many countries of the former Soviet Union, including in Russia, is celebrated on September 1st and is known as "Knowledge Day". This year, September 1st will be unique as the new educational amendments enter into force in Russia and Russia-controlled territories. These amendments introduce controversial changes to the educational process, which raise serious concerns about children's rights and freedoms. These changes include new unified textbooks on history, the legalisation of children's forced labour, and the continuation of "Conversations about the important" lessons with an enhanced militaristic element.

Kayla Susalla


In the 2019–20 school year – the most recent with federal data – 51.4 percent of public schools possessed an armed, sworn, law‐​enforcement officer. School Resource Officers (SROs) are police officers with a community‐​oriented approach intended to increase safety by mitigating crime, violence, and other anti‐​social behavior in schools. Some Americans view added police presence as an appropriate response to safeguard students, while others fear an increase in police misconduct. There is also growing concern SROs accelerate the "school‐​to‐​prison pipeline": pushing students into the criminal justice system through excessive discipline and law enforcement contact.
With important concerns both for and against SROs, policymakers must ask: Do they do more harm than good?
SROs are relatively new, and there are yawning gaps in research. Studies are often limited to small samples and find contradictory outcomes on arrest rates and effects on school safety. Nevertheless, a common theme is the presence of SROs increase disciplinary actions, including punishments potentially carrying significant long‐​term harms.
Researchers Gottfredson, et al. compared schools with increased SRO presences to schools with no increase in SROs. They found that schools with increased SROs saw the number of drug and weapons‐​related offenses rise, as well as higher instances of exclusionary discipline by school administrators. Exclusionary discipline refers to measures that remove students from school, such as out‐​of‐​school suspensions. The study also concluded the increase in SROs did not improve school safety.
Researchers Sorensen, Shen, and Bushway found the presence of SROs in middle schools decreased serious violence, in contrast to Gottfredson, et al., making schools safer, but they also increased "out‐​of‐​school suspensions, transfers, expulsions, and police referrals." The increase in suspensions was especially acute for Hispanic and Black students. A third study, comparing schools near police departments that did and did not qualify for SRO grants, had similar results, finding schools near departments above the threshold increased the number of recorded firearm offenses and decreased the instances of violent fights, but increased expulsions, referrals for arrest, out‐​of‐​school and in‐​school suspensions, and chronic absenteeism. Black students experienced the largest effect on out‐​of‐​school suspensions, over two times greater than white students, followed by students with disabilities and males.
Through exclusionary discipline, students miss the point of school – to be in the classroom learning – which can create lasting educational and socialization gaps. Additionally, the stigma surrounding the label of "criminal" can ostracize students from their social groups and remove support provided at school. But positive relationships are vital, particularly given the uptick of mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression among young Americans.
Another study, which compared schools with and without SROs in the same districts, found no effect on total arrests, but a 402.3 percent increase in the arrest rate for disorderly conduct. The null findings on total arrests suggest arresting students is not the most common form of correction by SROs, but the five‐​fold increase in disorderly conduct bears consideration. Disorderly conduct is cited when someone "disrupts the peace" and it is among the most discretionary – and possibly minor – actions potentially resulting in charges. For example, a student abruptly shouting in class could be charged with a misdemeanor or civil infraction, or in severe circumstances, a felony. The charge could depend on several factors: the teacher's tolerance of the disruption, the student's prior relationship with the teacher or SRO, or occurrences of interruptions in prior classes. The circumstances surrounding filing charges against a student can be subjective, leaving criminal justice system involvement largely open to SRO choice.
Criminalization of misbehavior can inhibit future education, employment, and housing opportunities, feeding the "school‐​to‐​prison pipeline." Additionally, narrowing of options may lead to a higher likelihood of recidivism, as students are deprived of opportunities that increase individual capital. Weisburst found that increased police presence in Texas schools led to a 2.5 percent decrease in high school graduation rates and about a 4 percent decrease in college enrollment rates.
An alternative to SROs could be encouraging administrators or parent monitors. Both groups could benefit from gaining greater awareness of school issues by engaging with the larger student body. Monitor positions create positive connections for youth by bridging social gaps between staff, parents, and students. Administrations can highlight mediation practices when conflict arises between students, and hold interventions with families, emphasizing law enforcement as a last resort. Such negotiation and conflict resolution are essential life skills.
States are rapidly expanding SRO programs, federal grants enable local agencies to create positions, and Congress continues to propose bills expanding such programs. Given the paucity of good research and the mixed findings of what does exist, expanding SROs is something all levels of government—especially Washington, which has no constitutional authority to intervene—should be hesitant to do.

"California is promoting an approach to math instruction that's likely to reduce opportunities for disadvantaged students," writes math professor Brian Conrad.

Charter schools use "fewer dollars to achieve better outcomes," write University of Arkansas researchers.

The Guardian tells us that:The amount being spent building new free schools, then, was vastly more, per school, than the average amount allocated per school to rebuild England's existing classrooms. A pet political idea was put ahead of a much broader, if less eye-catching, objective: maintaining school buildings so that children are kept safe.Well, yes, we'd rather expect that to be true. We don't rebuild classrooms every year. So the spending on a school being built (or even one being rebuilt if it's their year) will be higher than the average of all schools some to many of which are not being rebuilt.Between 2011 and 2018, £1.7bn was spent on site acquisition and construction for 221 free schools. On average over this period, that is £959,000 per free school, per year. By comparison, a National Audit Office (NAO) report published in June revealed that, from 2016 to 2023, annual spending across the remainder of England's 21,600 state-funded schools on "major rebuilding and refurbishment" equated to just £26,070 per school, per year.Much the same point applies. When actually building a school the expense is rather higher than the maintenance of another school. This isn't to say that the school maintenance programme was well managed - or even managed at all. We're insistent that government's inability to manage maintenance is one of the major reasons to not have government building and operating things. But just to clarify the maths being used here. The cost this year of building a school is higher than the annual buildings maintenance costs of a school we've already built. Umm, Yes? The real surprise here is that this calculation was thought worthy of publication in The Guardian. But, you know, journalists and numbers….

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Jeffrey Miron


This article appeared on Substack on June 13, 2023
The state of Oklahoma has recently approved a charter for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, whose curriculum will include religious teaching. Taxpayers will fund the school, so a battle will ensue over whether such funding is desirable or constitutional.
Economic reasoning suggests three possible justifications for government support of education.
First, one person's education might benefit society more broadly. Economic productivity might be higher, for example, if everyone has mastered "the three Rs." Some individuals, however, might ignore this "spillover" and therefore choose too little education relative to the social optimum.
Second, people for whom education would be productive (by raising their future income) might underinvest due to myopia, suggesting that even without spillovers, the laissez‐​faire level of education might be too low. Some parents, in particular, might choose too little education for their children unless policy makes education cheaper.
Third, people for whom education would be beneficial, with or without externalities, and even without myopia, might have insufficient income to pay for private education and face difficulty in borrowing to finance such an investment (credit constraints).
Reasonable people can debate whether these arguments are convincing. Each has some plausibility, yet each is easily overstated.
In Libertarian Land, governments play no role in education, whether via mandatory schooling, public schools, funding for vouchers or charters, state colleges and universities, or subsidized student loans.
The reason is that, while government support might have the benefits described, this support requires government to define what constitutes education, as the Oklahoma controversy illustrates. Government definition of education limits variety and innovation, and in the extreme facilitates thought control. It is no accident that totalitarian regimes exercise extreme control over their educational systems.
If one nevertheless takes as given that, for the foreseeable future, government will fund education, and have the power to determine what kinds of education receive this support, should taxpayer funding be available for religious schools?
Assuming such education meets the curricular standards that government imposes on all schools, public and private, the answer is yes.
Why? Because religious schools can generate the three benefits that potentially justify government support of education. This is the standard reasoning for allowing private religious schools (or home schooling) to satisfy mandatory schooling laws.
Stated differently, allowing taxpayer funding to religious schools that meet the criteria for funding under the state's general rules (e.g., teaching the three Rs) is the neutral position for government with respect to religion. This neutrality is the natural interpretation of the Constitution's establishment clause, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Thus libertarians would prefer little or no government involvement in education. If government does fund education, however, it should not exclude religious schools a priori but instead determine funding based on the criteria that might justify such intervention in the first place.

So absent strong evidence that school choice has non‐​trivial negatives, shouldn't more choice be the default?

Employing police to respond to misbehavior is not only costly, it does not provide a long‐​term solution to school climate issues.