Cara Jackson

Teaching as a team sport: What happens when a great teacher moves to a struggling school? New research on a federal program found that when top teachers transferred to high-need schools, their performance dropped significantly. Teacher effectiveness may not be a fixed skill.

Nice @mattbarnum.bsky.social piece describing an important new study on whether really effective (85th%ile) teachers who have a big change in school context continue to be really effective. They don't: they continue to be effective (66th%ile), but not top tier.

www.chalkbeat.org/2026/02/17/t...

:15 p.m.—3:45 p.m. Roundtable Discussion: What’s Next? Education Research and Policy at a Crossroads Panelists Amber Northern, Senior Advisor, Office of the Secretary, US Department of Education Cara Jackson, Research Manager, The Center for Outcomes Based Contracting (OBC) at Southern Education Foundation Nat Malkus, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Education Policy Studies, AEI Moderator: Dan Goldhaber, CALDER/AIR

We're at a crossroads—what's next for education policy and research?

Join us at #CALDER2026 on March 2 for a roundtable discussion with @carajackson.bsky.social, Nat Malkus (AEI), Amber Northern (U.S. Department of Education), and @cedr.bsky.social.

Register 👉 caldercenter.org/events/17th-...

Jesse Jackson, a leading African American voice on global stage, dies at 84 As a civil rights activist, he joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and Memphis. He later launched two historic presidential campaigns.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who became the leading voice of Black American aspirations after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and was the first African American to gain significant traction as a presidential candidate, died Tuesday.

Another reminder. Anne Frank and her sister Margot didn't die in gas chambers. They died of Typhus due to overcrowding at Bergen-Belsen women's camp, which also experienced outbreaks of tuberculosis and typhoid fever.

I’m devastated to learn of the shooting in Pawtucket.

What should have been a unifying community event has now become another senseless tragedy.

Congress needs to pass commonsense legislation to end this cycle of gun violence once and for all.

www.wpri.com/news/local-n...

Going after the good Samaritans, real winning approach 🙄

Trump Slashed Billions for Education in 2025. See Our List of Affected Grants We've tabulated the grant programs that have had awards terminated over the past year. See our list.

“Because there is no central listing of all terminated grants, the actual number of affected grants is almost certainly higher.” @marklieberman.bsky.social for @edweek.org www.edweek.org/policy-polit...

AG Bondi claims the administration has released everything—but a new analysis suggests it's only 2%. trib.al/vjXcnXW

Investigators seized massive amounds of data from Epstein’s properties in Palm Beach, NYC, and of course, “pedophile island”—also known as Howard Lutnick’s favorite vacation spot.

GitHub - DAAF-Contribution-Community/daaf: DAAF, the Data Analyst Augmentation Framework: An open-source, extensible workflow for Claude Code that allows skilled researchers to rapidly scale their exp... DAAF, the Data Analyst Augmentation Framework: An open-source, extensible workflow for Claude Code that allows skilled researchers to rapidly scale their expertise and accelerate data analysis by a...

Today, I’m launching DAAF, the Data Analyst Augmentation Framework: an open-source, extensible workflow for Claude Code that allows skilled researchers to rapidly scale their expertise and accelerate data analysis by 5-10x -- *without* sacrificing the transparency...
github.com/brhkim/daaf/...

Don’t miss the second webinar in our series on Feb. 25 at 2pm ET: “Research Evidence Against Dismantling the U.S. Education Department: How to Strengthen Support for Students with Disabilities.” Register here: bit.ly/4aeD3ni

The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford | The Segregation Tracking Project Use our visualizations to explore educational opportunity in your school & community.

VERSION 2.0 of the Segregation Tracking Project is here!

New data on racial and economic segregation between neighborhoods and schools over the last 30+ years for every school district, metro area, state, county, congressional district (new!), and more!

edopportunity.org/segregation/

Classrooms as Workplaces: How Student Composition Affects Teacher Health Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

"a one standard deviation increase in student disadvantage raises overall and stress-related sick leave by 3.6% and 8.7%, respectively. Survey evidence indicates that these effects operate through classroom conditions rather than workload or organizational differences" www.nber.org/papers/w34841

Celebrate presidents' day by voting for @jscottclayton.bsky.social!

Map showing tens of thousands of protests across the US between Trump's inauguration last year and January 31, 2026.

The volume & geographic distribution of protest nationwide during year 1 of Trump's second term was extraordinary.

A bright blue chair with shelves full of books forming the frame.

I really want this chair made of books.

"Billionaires like thinkers who see their exploitation of the weak as good and natural. Epstein funneled ~$20m a year to academic men who shared his ideology [and got] to hold forth in formal sessions at Harvard, condemning feeding and caring for the poor as if he were making a scholarly argument."

Judge Ends Deportation Case for Mexican Father of 3 U.S. Marines

Today in "what are we even doing here?"

Arresting this guy was a ridiculous waste of resources.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/u...

a blue heart with the words happy valentine 's day Alt: a color-changing heart with the words happy valentine 's day

This week marks a year since DOGE took a torch to the Institute of Education Sciences contracts.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone who still believes in #EdResearch as a public good.

Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna's flu vaccine application The rejection is the latest instance of Vinay Prasad overruling career FDA scientists to place vaccines under harsher scrutiny.

The flu and pneumonia kill over 45,000 people a year. Moderna developed a new mRNA flu vaccine for people 50 and older--who are most at risk. Prasad, unilaterally, against the recommendation of experts within the agency, denied Moderna's appplication. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” 9:12 AM Feb 12, 2026 604.8K Views

In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

A joint statement on the decision to drastically restructure and effectively dismantle the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) datafoundation.org/news/press-r...

We need to talk about how a guy named Bruno (namely @paul-bruno.com ) published an article titled "We Need to Talk About How We Compensate School Staff" muse.jhu.edu/issue/54902 \

(standing ovation, Paul)

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

"...impossible to ensure that A.I. tools on campus are being used responsibly, both to support education and to prevent harm."

I'd like the AI-free option, but would also welcome a collective of universities joining forces to demand AI companies provide the data needed to ensure responsible use.

a graph showing JEPS has less selection on significance than other journals

When we look across journals, we see the same patterns repeated. The main exception is the Journal of Experimental Political Science, which has the highest rate of null-only reporting and lowest rate of rejection-only reporting. Kudos to them.

There are lots of times where a null results is interesting and important, but I think there's little doubt that it's harder to get work with a null published.

Expanding school counseling: The impacts of California funding changes Counselors are a common school resource for students navigating complicated and consequential education choices, but most students have limited access…

me and @cmulhern.bsky.social's paper on school counselors is out in econ of ed review

We find more funding for counselors in California in the 2000s increased grad rates, college enrollment & school climate

in short: counselors improve student outcomes and we should invest more in them!

Excited to share new results on the effects of AR LEARNS salary raises on teacher turnover during the first 3 years of implementation 👇

Our new working paper on school-level attendance practices and systems in MI and GA! In addition to cataloguing more and less common practices, we also show there is relatively little variation both across states and within states across contexts in attendance strategies. 1/2