OK, maybe 2025 wasn’t so great for ed reform
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Rod Paige
12 min read
The article opens with the author attending Rod Paige's funeral, describing him as a former Secretary of Education. Understanding Paige's role in shaping No Child Left Behind and his journey from Houston school superintendent to the first African American Secretary of Education provides essential context for the education reform discussion.
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No Child Left Behind Act
12 min read
The article discusses education reform history and accountability systems. Rod Paige was instrumental in implementing NCLB, and understanding this landmark 2001 legislation helps contextualize the ongoing debates about federal education policy, testing, and achievement gaps referenced throughout the article.
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Coverdell education savings account
11 min read
The article repeatedly references ESAs (Education Savings Accounts) as a major policy development, including discussion of ESA-funded private schools in Arizona and predictions about federal vouchers/ESAs. This specific policy mechanism is central to the school choice debate discussed in the article.
Hi, friends. I’m writing this on a flight to Houston to attend former Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s funeral. It’s been so heartwarming to see the outpouring of affection for Dr. Paige on social media, and I’m looking forward to visiting with some old friends at the service.
Meanwhile, I have a jam-packed SCHOOLED for you today—the last of 2025. I’m heading down to Hilton Head, South Carolina, for the holiday to be with my 83-year-old father, his newlywed wife (no kidding!), and the rest of our extended family. I’ll be back in your in-boxes on January 6. I hope you have a restful and rejuvenating break.
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On Tuesday, I weighed the pros and cons of 2025, arguing that, on balance, the year was pretty good for ed reform, despite all the things that made it challenging writ large. Most of y’all were not convinced. Let’s hear some responses:
Tim Daly
The measure of any year is whether it was good or bad for kids. It’s very difficult to call 2025 successful given the NAEP results released in late January. While some folks had long expected them, I think they were shocking and far from inevitable, given the financial resources available to schools and the return to normal post-Covid school operations by fall 2022. A collective acknowledgement—most evident among opinion leaders—that our problems starter earlier than 2020 and require a real national response is positive. But when are we going to put actual wins on the board? That’s what I would call a good year.
Van Schoales
...Seems far darker than brighter to me, given the following list:
There seems to be no effort or vision for how to better support most low-income kids in the biggest school districts.
No major national foundations are seriously investing in improving schools in urban areas, and there are fewer now than the last two decades.
Tax credits, vouchers, and ESAs will help some but at best will be a marginal improvement and likely do nothing for those large public systems.
Research on impact is less fashionable these days, and the federal chaos will make it super hard to improve the research ecosystem.
AI, while great for those with privilege and for
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