Commentary: As Education Decentralizes, Those Who Like Control Are Nervous

As more parents gain the opportunity to abandon a compulsory schooling assignment for other options, including homeschooling and microschooling, it’s no surprise that those who favor top-down control of education feel anxious about this bottom-up education transformation. This nervousness is occurring on both ends of the political spectrum.

On the political left, The Washington Post did some pearl-clutching last week around the possibility that “no government official will ever check on what, or how well, [homeschoolers] are being taught.” On the political right, the Fordham Institute expressed similar concerns about hybrid homeschoolers and microschoolers: “To ensure that those children receive the education they deserve, it will require policymakers to craft smart laws to govern these new institutions….”

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Commentary: The Solution to Pandemic Learning Loss Is Less Schooling, Not More

The latest data dump from the Nation’s Report Card reveals declining academic performance among US students. As with previous releases showing the same trend, especially over the past three years, the solution proposed by many education reformers and advocates is to double-down on the amount of schooling and school-like activities students get.

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Commentary: Pandemic ‘Learning Loss’ Actually Reveals More About Schooling than Learning

There are mounting concerns over profound learning loss due to prolonged school closures and remote learning. New data released last week by the US Department of Education reveal that fourth-grade reading and math scores dropped sharply over the past two years. 

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