ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Travis Pillow
My background story
What I did before joining Step Up For Students
What do I do on my day off?
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06/20/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Empirical questions
A new set of dire warnings have emerged about the wave of new policies allowing families to direct public education funding to private schools or other alternatives chosen by their...
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06/13/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Overcoming futility
Mike Goldstein, a shrewd observer of education innovation, reflects on the recent retreat of John Arnold—a billionaire investor and philanthropist—from an agenda that promoted the expansion of high-quality charter schools. One...
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06/06/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: The new majority
Florida has passed a historic milestone. The majority of all students now attend a learning option chosen by their parents. The future of education is here. It’s just not evenly...
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05/30/25 | Travis Pillow
National Education News: One in Ten
Two numbers are helpful for thinking about the future of education. $946 billion. That’s the amount of funding for public education in 2023, according to the latest figures from the...
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05/23/25 | Travis Pillow
National Education News: Paradigm busting
The National Microschooling Center has released its latest nationwide analysis of the sector, which it estimates accounts for roughly 2 percent of all K-12 education in the U.S. The full...
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05/16/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: How much is $5 billion
This week, a congressional committee signed off on a budget bill that includes the first-ever nationwide education choice scholarship program. Trimmed in half to $5 billion per year, the Educational...
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05/09/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Disparate treatment
Education savings accounts and ESA-like individual tax credits are sweeping the nation, allowing more parents to direct public education funding. But some states give students vastly different funding amounts depending...
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05/02/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Core principles
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that could pave the way for religious charter schools. Zooming out, the conflict surrounding St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic School’s...
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04/28/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: A market for non-linear innovations
Dan Fitzpatrick offers a useful mental model for thinking through the impact of artificial intelligence on education: Will it mostly support “linear” innovations, like automated tutors or teacher assistants, that...
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04/18/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: 1997 no more
In a 1997 column, the venerable progressive pistol Molly Ivins set her sights on the future of Texas education. In the coming years, she imagined, the state might pass $1...
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03/31/25 | Travis Pillow
Update: More than 425,000 students apply for Florida education choice scholarships
Updated March. 31, 2025 After a record-setting opening weekend in which more than 120,000 students applied for Florida K-12 scholarships, demand remains high. Step Up For Students, the nonprofit organization...
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03/31/25 | Travis Pillow
National Education News: Abundance
Good Morning, and welcome to our weekly roundup of education news from around the country. The word of the week is “abundance.” That’s the title of Ezra Klein and Derek...
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03/21/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Cat and mouse
Happy Friday, and welcome to our weekly roundup of education news around the country. The Wall Street Journal published a deep dive on AI cheating in schools — and futile...
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03/14/25 | Travis Pillow
National Education News: À La Carte
Happy Friday, and welcome to our weekly roundup of national education news. Our colleague Ron Matus recently joined Michael Horn to discuss Florida’s evolution from school choice to education choice....
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03/07/25 | Travis Pillow
National Education News: Peak public school?
Happy Friday, and welcome to our weekly roundup of national education news. Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute marks a milestone that will shape U.S. education in the coming...
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02/28/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Definitional questions
The U.S. Supreme Court has set an April hearing for a landmark case that could pave the way for religious charter schools. Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma received state approval to...
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02/21/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Ahead of their time
Christopher Jencks, the scholar of economic inequality and intellectual pioneer of school choice, passed away last week at 88. He authored a federally funded report that led to an early...
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02/14/25 | Travis Pillow
National education news: Teaching machines
Sunday afternoon, while most Americans settled in for the Super Bowl, Open AI’s Sam Altman published a blog post that made some extraordinary claims: In a decade, perhaps everyone on...
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