When U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would expand the federal program on apprenticeships, interest in the job training plan picked up considerable steam. Those who hail the idea frequently look to Germany and its apprenticeship system for why this model might work. Their program is often credited with helping Germany weather the international financial crisis with...

The Supreme Court closed out its Spring 2017 term this morning by announcing its opinion in Trinity Lutheran v. Missouri, a case that had caught education reformers’ attention due to its potential implications for private school choice. A 7-2 majority ruled in favor of Trinity Lutheran, whose preschool had been excluded from a state grant program that helps nonprofits buy scrap...

Executive Summary Federal Work-Study (FWS) is on the chopping block: the Trump administration’s recently-released budget summary seeks to cut program funding by nearly 50 percent, from $990 million to $500 million, and to “reform the program to ensure funds go to undergraduate students who would benefit most.” [1] Many observers have expressed surprise that the administration ...

Arne Duncan served as U.S. secretary of education under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2016, following a seven-year tenure as the superintendent of the Chicago public schools. During his time at the U.S. Department of Education, we often didn’t see eye to eye when it came to Race to the Top, NCLB waivers, the Common Core, college lending, and more....

I’ve written several times before about the disconnect between changing test scores and changing life outcomes.  In general, even when we can rigorously identify changes in math and reading test results caused by schools or programs, we have weak and inconsistent evidence that this produces commensurate changes in later life outcomes.  Keeping in mind that test-based accountabi...

The Supreme Court will hand down its final rulings of the term today, notes The 74. Among the decisions should be the Trinity Lutheran case. As Martin West has explained in Ed Next Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauleyinvolves a Missouri church that was turned down by a state program that provides grants to nonprofits to resurface their playgrounds with rubber from recycled scrap t...

As millions of families gather to wave goodbye to summer this Labor Day weekend, let’s take a moment to celebrate their contribution to next-generation social mobility. The prevalence of two-parent families in communities predicts their average level of student achievement and social mobility rates for those from disadvantaged backgrounds—even after adj...

On Monday, June 26 at 10:30 am, the Urban Institute will host an event focused on the release of new data from the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Early results from the publicly funded private school choice program were negative. Louisiana superintendent John White and a panel of school choice experts will discuss the latest findings. The event will be live-streamed here. — Ed...

The former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, “privately urged President Trump” to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric, the Washington Post reports, describing it as a case of Giuliani apparently “pushing a shadow foreign policy.” A network of more than 100 charter schools operated by U.S.-based followers of Gulen were the to...