RealClearEducation Articles

It’s confirmed: If Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is elected New York City mayor in November, he’ll wage war on charter schools to the detriment of working-class families. “I oppose efforts by the state to mandate an expansion of charter school operations in New York City,” the Queens Assemblyman said in a Staten Island Advance survey, according to the New York Post’s exclusive. “I also oppose the co-locating of charter schools inside DOE school buildings, but for those already co-located, my administration would undertake a comprehensive review of...

When the semester begins, my classroom fills with anticipation and nerves—mine included. Every term offers a chance to start fresh, build habits, and forge relationships that will carry us through. Those first weeks of any term are far more than icebreakers; they're a blueprint signaling to students who they are in this space and what we'll achieve together. I work hard to elevate every student. But as a professor and parent, I've noticed a pattern: male students often drift first when the relationship isn't there. Men are relational learners. When a young man feels known—when he...

Public school K-12 enrollment hit a historic high in 2019, but since that pre-COVID peak, enrollment has taken a steep 7.6% nationwide nosedive post-COVID. This dramatic downturn looks to be far from over, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Millions of parents watched their children struggle academically and socially during the COVID pandemic because of the isolation of shutdowns across the country. The uncertainty they faced in how long these conditions would last led to a reckoning with traditional schooling, and many parents sought new options for educating their...

"Everybody—sooner or later—sits down to a banquet of consequences." – Robert Louis Stevenson On a sunny afternoon in April 1999, I walked out the door ahead of the students to say hello to parents gathered in the parking area beside the school. Inside the school, the children collected their belongings and prepared to head home. As I walked down the entry ramp and out into the sun, a mother met me and asked with an unsteady voice, "Did you hear what happened at that high school near Denver?" Shock and disbelief reverberated in her voice. I knew intuitively that whatever she...

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall and began its destructive path through the Gulf Coast. New Orleans bore the brunt of the devastation, not only in the loss of homes and lives, but also in the destruction of its public infrastructure, especially its schools. Over the next two decades, the governance of New Orleans' K-12 public schools underwent a significant reinvention. This effort produced one of the most innovative and ambitious approaches to K-12 school reform in modern American education: a system of public charter schools funded by taxpayers and independently operated...

“I’m going to be in debt for my whole f---ing life. How does that even make sense? I signed up for this s--- when I was 17. This should not be legal.” That’s not a line from a protest, a podcast, or a political speech. It’s a young woman, alone in her car, crying into her phone. In a now-viral video, she breaks down after learning that the repayment and interest plan she committed to when she was 17 would actually cost her more over time than the original school debt itself. She isn’t irrational. She isn’t dramatic. She’s doing the...

A number of respected higher education reform leaders, led by the Manhattan Institute, recently issued a statement detailing everything that is wrong with colleges and universities today. Recounting the results of a couple of decades of institutional blight, the comprehensive list names identity politics, DEI, divisive racial quotas, and demonizing the values of Western civilization as the root of campus problems. The higher ed reformers also point to the creation of a dominant leftist ideological culture, which drives every aspect of campus life and systematically discourages open inquiry,...

Last year, congressional hearings resulted in resignations at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Now, President Donald Trump and his administration are celebrating the ouster of the heads of Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Virginia. In response, members of the higher education guild are mourning the dearly departed as martyrs. Both sides are missing something.The problems facing virtually every college campus in America have been well documented: hostility to a variety of intellectual viewpoints, resulting in cancellations, protests, self-censorship, and a failure to prepare...

At a recent dinner party with people who would define themselves as “very liberal,” someone asked me whether my new center-left employer was uncomfortable with my long record of advocacy for charter schools. “No,” I shrugged, “because charter schools are public schools.”  “But they aren’t real public schools,” he chided. I’ve had this same conversation dozens of times in the last twenty years, and it goes to the heart of the debate now about private school choice. What makes a public school “public”? What...

College presidencies turn over quickly. The American Council on Education (ACE) says the average tenure is now less than six years, a decline from 2006, when the rascals hung around for nine years on average. I’m not confident in that baseline. Back in 1990, ACE calculated the average tenure of a college president as 6.7 years. Another organization, the College and University Personnel Association, calculated the average in 1995 to be seven years. All in all, this suggests a fairly consistent picture. The length of the average term has shrunk—but only a little. Serving as a...

National Parents Day is July 27. It’s a day for celebrating parents—a day intended to support and encourage parents as they fulfill their high calling to love and lead their families well.It’s also an opportunity: a chance to reflect on how we, as a society, are doing when it comes to helping parents parent—empowering them so that children can thrive and families can flourish.As an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom representing parents across the country, I hear a lot of stories—ones that show we need to do better for them. Stories of parents...

It is time to be brutally honest about AI in education, especially now that the race is on among tech companies to secure lucrative relationships with schools. As indicated by a recent New York Times article, educational AI is shaping up to be big business. Powerful forces are plowing full steam ahead to implement AI into the earliest stages of learning in a woefully uncritical way. One wonders if anyone has consulted those who should know best about the effects of AI on the minds of our students: the teachers. The commonly held belief that AI is a critical tool for enhancing and expanding...

The University of Virginia’s Faculty Senate recently voted “no confidence” in UVA’s Board of Visitors “for not protecting the University and its president from outside interference, and for not consulting with the Faculty Senate in a time of crisis, actions that are inconsistent with its duties under the Code of Virginia and the Board’s Statement of Visitor Responsibilities.”UVA’s Faculty Senate was right to condemn the Board for lack of shared governance. But it was wrong to criticize the Board for not “protecting” then-President...

We are losing our minds.  We have no national vision for learning in our society. No clue about what we want to produce. No industrial policy. No human capital strategy for the development and success of our people. No call to the values that bring us together: to love thy neighbor, as thy self, in thy self. No strategy for advancing human intelligence in a world of artificial intelligence. No national commitment to community, purpose, and play as the way to address our mental health crisis. No national learning objectives to ensure the competitive success of our kids in the...

The single most important responsibility of college trustees is picking the college president. The task is difficult because so few people measure up to the job. And it is all the more difficult because so many people have an interest in the outcome.  The University of Virginia is offering a textbook case. The resignation of President Jim Ryan summoned the wrath of the UVA Faculty Senate—or if not its wrath, at least its “resolutions,” of which there have been two. One purports to instruct the Board of Visitors on how to select an interim president, and the other...

Jews and teachers unions have long stood side-by-side. Indeed, the legendary Al Shanker, who founded New York’s United Federation of Teachers and, during his 23-year tenure as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), made teachers unions a power player in Democratic Party politics, was a proud Jew who used his position to fight antisemitism and promote Jewish causes. As recently as last year, the National Education Association (NEA) — America’s largest teachers union — published an article celebrating Jews’ historic role in labor movements,...

Accreditation is typically the benchmark that signals a college's value and reliability to peers and prospective students. Students look for accreditation to ensure they choose a reputable institution and have more information on affordability. Accreditation unlocks federal and sometimes state dollars to pay for that education through grants, scholarships, and student loans. For those working in industry who seek to go back to school, accreditation is extremely important in determining whether that employee will get reimbursed for their education. Accreditation began in the late nineteenth...

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has massive implications for the American economy. Perhaps the most unappreciated set of policies in the law relates to higher education and how students pay for skills training. In 2022-23, the federal government accounted for over $140 billion in annual postsecondary student aid spending in the form of direct grants, loans, tax benefits, and other financial assistance. The signature law of President Trump’s second term reformed all these funding streams in ways that will fundamentally alter the higher education financing landscape. Among other...

Once a prestigious institution of American higher education, Cornell University has become a home for antisemitic protests, students supporting intifada, and professors justifying terror. But the story doesn’t end there. At Cornell, identity politics is a governing principle, deeply embedded in the institution itself. Cornell’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, recently claimed that his institution is committed to merit-based decisions in all of its processes; however, public university policy and internal documents suggest otherwise. They also suggest that Kotlikoff has overseen...