Last week my colleagues Alex Spurrier and Marisa Mission launched the first edition of a new Bellwether newsletter focused on AI. I’m crossposting the first one in its entirety and hope you will subscribe to get future ones by signing up here. – AR June 2024 ISSUE #1 By Alex Spurrier and Marisa Mission We’re sharing the first issue of this newsletter with all our subscribers, but if you want to receive future updates on the latest AI news, be sure to subscribe here. The education sector is no stranger to technological fads and shifts. Flipped classrooms, Massively Open Online Courses, 1 ..read more

ICYMI David Winston and I discuss the upcoming election in a Bellwether Linkedin Live you can watch via this link. Among other professional work David is on the CBS decision desk for election night, so it’s an opportunity to hear how a professional thinks about the upcoming election. President Biden has his work cut out for him, especially on the economy, but the election is far from settled. You can view this video here. Earlier this week I wrote about an overlooked education aspect of the Harrison Butker discourse: The ‘Sir, this is a Wendy’s’ problem: It seems almost certain that on one of ..read more

Unless you were sedated during May you probably heard the furor about Kansas City Chief place kicker Harrison Butker’s commencement address at Benedictine College, a small conservative Catholic private school in Kansas. Butker said a number of controversial things in his speech, a lot of stuff I don’t agree with. And then came the predictable overwrought reaction. I don’t mean the criticism, that’s healthy just as it’s healthy Butker can express his views. But Butker discourse really took off – and again a lot of people seemed shocked to learn that a lot of professional athletes are conservati ..read more

Jed Wallace and I have a new Wonkyfolk out. We talk about the new Bellwether analysis “Edge of Seventeen” about age laws in the United States. (Eduwonk overview here.) Lynne Graziano from Bellwether joins us for the discussion. What makes this especially interesting is not the obvious stuff – everyone knows you can serve in the military at 18 abut can’t have a legal drink. Or even the incoherence between states, hello federalism. It’s the incoherence even within states that points up just how muddled things are. But before we get to all that we disagree about the charter school musical chairs ..read more

We’re coming into a weekend, my own kids are finishing high school this month. And I made a Fast Times At Ridgemont High reference the other day. So here we go. Along with books like Patricia Hersch’s Tribe Apart, Fast Times is, in my view, essential to understanding 1980s suburban culture. But where Hersch, and others, documented what was happening or had happened, Cameron Crowe’s 1981 book really anticipated the direction things were going. The movie, directed by Amy Heckerling, while not a favorite of critics, was important as a cultural marker a ..read more

Chad Aldeman, Lynne Graziano, Andy Jacob, and I have a new analysis out today looking at differences in age policy across the states. Yes, in The Edge of Seventeen, we look at how old you have to be to do different things in different places. It’s a mess! And more interesting than you might think. Here’s Reason on our analysis and the larger questions around coherence and confusion. For millennia and across different societies there have been formal and informal rites of passage for young people based on different and shifting conceptions about when and how the transition from child to adult h ..read more

A few memories stay with me from the very early days of the pandemic. Mostly about what I got wrong or right, or just got lucky. My wife and I throw themed dinner parties and on Feb. 29th of 2020 we threw a small one with a leap theme, about great leaps. We served grasshoppers among other jumpy food. The attendees included a managing editor at a media outlet, a former secretary of education, an artist friend, non-profit leaders, a FAANG type, that sort of thing. People who were generally connected to information. By that point everyone knew it was bad news, the worst was coming, and part of th ..read more

Recent And Coming Attractions I discussed Virginia’s efforts on school accountability with Susan Pendergrass on her “There’s A Policy For That” podcast. This month, on the 22nd I’m participating in this Aspen Institute webinar about advancing bipartisan policy ideas in a hyper-polarized time. I’ll be at the RISE conference in D.C. on the 23rd, moderating what should be a lively panel about school choice, parent voice, and pluralism. ICYMI new briefs this week on school finance as part of Bellwether’s Splitting the Bill series this week, this time on special education. Let’s Hope The Music Neve ..read more

Jed and I have a new WonkyFolk out. Most of you listen on various podcasts apps but if you watch on YouTube you’ll see that although we don’t preplan Jed and I are aligned and on point on fashion. We talk about AI, ASU-GSV, charter school history, charter school present, politics, and why Jed wants charter folk to get crisp. I own up to my biggest parenting mistake and being a lousy boyfriend.  Words On Fashions ICYMI – I wrote recently about why these phony hair shirts reformers are wearing are a bad fit. Sure there have been mistakes and missteps but that’s true in any area of social ..read more

When my daughters were pre-teens they came home from school one day alarmed. During a lesson on climate change the teacher or some part of the lesson, it was never quite clear, had basically stated that absent radical attention to warming there would be little hope for survivability on earth after 2030. This was during peak Thunberg-mania. I remember having a few thoughts. First, I’m someone deeply concerned about climate change but this isn’t what the evidence shows and is a bananas lesson. But also, even assuming this is what the evidence convincingly shows, these are really young kids, what ..read more