I’d like to start by offering my condolences to parents and students who were looking forward to a fresh start to a brand new school year. The COVID-19 precautions that are currently being forced upon millions of children certainly are nothing new. For the third year in a row, many...

While all the drama around the pandemic and its fallout sucks the life out of schools and communities, far too many heavy-hitters in the education policy and politics continue to sit in their silos and fight the battles of the 20th century around curriculum, testing and accountability. Brightbeam refuses to stand...

It’s been a tempestuous couple of years for education reform, but the clouds have broken over 2021, and the silver linings have rarely shown as bright.  Following two years of the Red for Ed movement and two years of COVID mandates and lockdowns that have hobbled the education of a...

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania mom Najimah Roberson knows a thing or two about schools not working for the children assigned to them. Her three children used to attend their local district school, but there were too many problems. “It seemed like every other week I was calling for a meeting or...

This week, a bill to fund students instead of systems is moving through the Pennsylvania legislature. Originally proposed in April, this bill would amend the Public School Code of 1949 (P.L.30, No.14) to add a provision that makes it mandatory for public schools to provide full-time in-person instruction or...

A new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) finds that enrollment in district public schools dropped 3% from school years 2019-2020 to 2020-2021, the first full year of the COVID epidemic. However, enrollment in public charter schools grew by 7%, or almost a quarter-million students, the largest...

Lizabeth smiled as our class sang “Happy Birthday” on her screen and beamed as she held up the new lamp she had received. After she told her parents about our class analysis of the solar system, they gave her a moon-shaped lamp for her birthday. I watched Lizabeth show...

You’ll see headline after headline out there telling school districts how they should go about their reopening plans. Many are prudent and thought out by experts, but they’re missing some really important things: parent engagement, input, and approval.  The Walton Family Foundation asked parents around the country what their priorities...

An important question a lot of people ask is: “How do we teach kids to read?” An important question we don’t ask enough is: “How do we teach kids to read independently?” We need to figure out the answer to the second question because it is undoubtedly, inextricably stitched into the...

Was I dreaming, or did the president of one of America’s largest teacher’s unions recently post in favor of school choice?  Randi Weingarten, the President of The American Federation of Teachers, has historically opposed the idea. But check out one of her latest tweets: Your demography does not define your...