If you live in Texas and believe that school choice by which state funding follows the student to the public or private education provider that best meets his or her needs is important, the current legislative session is the best opportunity we have had in decades to make this a reality.  Senate Bill 8, the […]

The Texas Legislature has convened for its biannual 140-day run and public education, unlike anytime in recent memory, has taken center stage in public opinion.  As well it should, as evidenced by recent data on student education outcomes as reported by Texas 2036: 52% of students are on grade level in reading 40% of students […]

Today the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics released the math and reading results of 9-year-olds (4th graders) from the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)–the first nationally representative report comparing student achievement from before the pandemic to now, and it was as predicted–an absolute disaster, reflecting unprecedented declines on the long […]

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has recently released the 2022 student assessment results on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and they are revealing in several ways.  Governor Greg Abbott was recently challenged by Politifact to validate his claim that the Texas high school graduation rate is at 90% overall, ranking the […]

Last week I took time to watch online the delivery of the Texas Education Agency’s 2021 Annual Report to the Texas State Board of Education by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, and it was predictably revealing and shocking, pretty much as most observers expected, which is probably why it has been very lightly reported by […]

 In over 30 years of involvement with public education reform, I can’t remember a time that offers more opportunity for transformational change than this moment.  The combination of overall underperformance of public education, the recalcitrance of the teachers’ unions to allow teachers to return to work during the pandemic, the direct impact of COVID itself […]

In a victory against state sanctioned racism, very late in the session just concluded both the Senate and House of the Texas Legislature adopted and sent to the Governor a bill that will prohibit the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in Texas schools, reaffirming a commitment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In addition […]

As a long-time member of the National Association of Scholars (NAS.org), I recently joined the Civics Alliance that they sponsored, which has as its mission “to unite education reformers, policymakers, and every U. S. citizen who wants to preserve civics education that teaches the founding principles and documents of the United States, the key events […]

Just when I was about to sit down and write another scathing indictment of the nation’s teachers unions for what by now should be a criminal act of child abuse in keeping huge numbers of our K-12 students out of school, and the cowardly response of their political leaders for being so intimidated, both of […]