redefinED

According to the National Review, progressive education reformers are ruining everything. I had no idea. How many progressive education reformers are we talking about? Is this like when my mother in-law throws two or three chocolate chips into my oatmeal when I’m not trying to have dessert for breakfast? Or when a single anchovy can mess up an entire pizza? Help...

Editor’s note: This commentary by redefinED executive editor Matt Ladner appeared Nov. 8 in the National Review. Americans remain deeply committed to the goal of a public-education system that promotes class mobility and equality of opportunity. We want such a system so badly that we have continued to support increases in public-education funding despite decades of disappointing academic results. The...

Editor's note: Each Saturday in November, redefinED is reprising a podcast from our archives, reminding readers that we have a wealth of audio content to complement our written blog posts. Today, we revisit a September 2015 interview with a voucher advocate who has fought for the educational rights of disabled and low-income students. Marcus Brandon’s resume starts off like a...

Editor’s note: This post is an edited version of a talk Step Up For Students president Doug Tuthill delivered in October to the Florida Charter School Conference in Orlando. Products and services in many industries are in the process of being unbundled. Thirty years ago, we had to buy albums to own our favorite songs. Now we can buy individual...

MIAMI – Christopher Bermudez likes plants. Like, really likes plants. The thought of reviving a droopy sprig of mizuna inspired the 17-year-old to riff: “When you kind of have faith in the plants, and you keep taking care of it, and you see it spring back up to life, that’s one of the biggest fulfilling feelings ever.” How gratifying for...

Editor’s note: Senior policy analyst Jonathan Butcher is co-editor and one of nearly two-dozen contributors to “The Not-So-Great-Society,” a new volume released today by The Heritage Foundation. Butcher’s chapter on education savings accounts, in which he explains the original Arizona model and describes how ESAs have evolved in large part due to upgrades in Florida and North Carolina, is...

Year-to-year student achievement will always fluctuate, but how does Florida stand in the larger picture? While results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress should concern everyone involved with K-12 education, Florida’s long-term trend is holding despite the recent score stagnation. And as we reported last week, Florida maintained high rankings when adjusting for demographics. Among eighth-grade math students,...

While last week's NAEP news was glum nationwide, Mississippi students performed relatively well. You have to dig into the details to see just how well. First, a bit of backstory. Mississippi is one of the nation’s poorest states and has the largest African-American student population in the country. The state has ranked at or near the bottom on NAEP scores for...

Each Saturday in November, redefinED is reprising a podcast from our archives, reminding readers that we have a wealth of audio content to complement our written blog posts. Today, we revisit an August 2015 interview with civil rights activist, education reform advocate and academic Howard Fuller. Ever since social justice advocates joined forces with free-market conservatives to create the groundbreaking...