Ben Lebovitz

wcer.wisc.edu/events/detai...

Seminar poster for Ben Lebovitz presenting "Pathways of Protection: Adult Support, Peer Climate, and Trans Youth Well-Being in Wisconsin" on Friday, February 6, from 12:00-1:30pm in 259 Education Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Abstract: Amid escalating restrictions on educational supports for transgender and gender diverse youth, I consider the roles of adult support and LGBTQ+ peer density as protective factors for transgender students. I use logistic regression, structural equation modeling (SEM), and inverse probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) to analyze data from Wisconsin’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Preliminary results indicate that having a greater number of supportive adults and LGBTQ+ peers is associated with fewer past-year suicide attempts for transgender students. However, the strength and significance of adult support and LGBTQ+ peer density as a moderator between mental health and suicide attempts differ between transgender and cisgender students. These findings provide timely evidence to inform school policies and legislative debates on the importance of gender-inclusive school environments.

I'm excited to share preliminary results from one of my dissertation papers tomorrow (12pm on Friday, 2/6), kicking off this semester's seminar series for the interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Looking forward to sharing this work!

I am not being snarky. I need my colleagues who wrote on covid school lockdowns to engage with this. To be as loud as they have been about prior "learning loss." Hell, you can cite Tom & Mark's AERJ paper so you feel better that there's some econ somewhere in your argument.

Attending #APPAM2025?
I’m excited to present the first paper from an emerging project documenting the Trump administration’s unlawful erasure of data, information, and resources across federal agencies.

Hope to see you on Saturday morning! 👋

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

In case you missed it in the deluge of depravity, the Supreme Court ruled that parents can opt out kids out of lessons on religious grounds. Which will likely lead not only to opt-outs but to a constriction of curriculum, a culture of surveillance, and more teacher shortages in public schools.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/o...

I lament that the Court appears to have embarked on a new era of procedural variability, and that it has done so in such a casual, inequitable, and, in my view, inappropriate manner. See Department of Education v. California, 604 U. S. ___ , ___ (2025) (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1–2). At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong. See, e.g., Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With more and more of our most significant rulings taking place in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s Court leaves less and less of a trace. But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to face it.

An extraordinary separate dissent from Justice Jackson accuses the majority of trying to pass off its dirty work under the cover of the shadow docket and explicitly invokes Korematsu, the Japanese internment case. Wow. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

Image is the cover of Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day. Illustration of a little red-headed boy frowning in bed. Illustrations by Ray Cruz.

AEFP and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Demolition of IES. www.citizen.org/news/lawsuit...

TLDR: feeling good about being part of a democratic process (and tonight’s result!), but the rot is still rotting.

Thrilled by over 70% turnout for my neighborhood! So burnt out by seeing (in person!) the rot of mistrust in basic process, and being responsible for responding to hours of baseless accusations - while making sure eligible voters can cast a ballot and have it counted.

They got pretty animated, with escalating accusations of voter fraud over the most banal processes, like using a touch-screen “express vote” to mark a ballot (the most accessible way to vote in WI!).

Served as the “chief” election official for my ward / polling place in WI tonight (my fourth election as chief inspector) and got to spend some quality time with city officials as the result of a wild (party-affiliated) election observer.

The US Capitol Building

In a new letter, AERA and other education research leaders call on Congress to protect the nation’s education data, research infrastructure, and knowledge base, by safeguarding the IES and broader Education Department staff, leadership, and mission. www.aera.net/Portals/38/E...

Excited to see @ucea-leadership.bsky.social publish this "Executive Action Tracker" of changes impacting the education landscape.

Grateful to have this new resource, hosted by a professional organization (!), addressing current needs in educational policy & leadership.

www.ucea.org/executive_ac...

When I wrote my camps book, people sometimes had difficulty understanding how concentration-camp regimes were proud of what they were doing and wanted attention for it, even as they also hoped to keep many aspects secret and terrorize vulnerable classes. Anyway, this is what that looks like.

AERA has just learned that all restricted-use NCES data licenses will be cancelled, possibly as early as March 20. We urgently request that all AERA members and others in the research community with restricted-use licenses take these two actions: www.aera.net/Research-Pol...

Not to be dramatic (but somehow not dramatic enough)

Most people are not political scientists using formal definitions. So I am curious when is the moment that people tell themselves "oh, I live under an authoritarian government now." Because what else is this?
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

The final vote: 51-45, with 4 people absent.

CLOTURE FAILS, A CONGRESSIONAL SPORTS BAN WILL NOT HAPPEN.

Democrats hold firm, not a single dem voted for cloture.

MAJOR victory for everyone who called in today and this week in support of trans people.

🤗

📢 Join the UCEA GSC and AERA LSI's Researcher Development Program next month to hear from Dr. Alex Bowers on Exploring Public Open Education Data & Code using FAIR Data Frameworks in Education!
1/3

Courts rule on Trump administration initiatives including DOGE, DEI The latest news on President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the new Congress.

NEW: Peggy Carr, commissioner of the Nat'l Center on Education Statistics and a two-decade+ veteran at Educ Dept, was abruptly put on leave today. She runs NAEP, the national math and reading tests seen as important marker of educational progress www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Cutting research funding would make education less effective and efficient Presidents of education research associations explain the impacts of recent funding cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

In this op-ed, we - the presidents of SREE and AEFP - joined forces to argue for the importance of evidence on "what works" and how cutting such funding is not "efficient" - it is wasteful. www.brookings.edu/articles/cut...

we can and must aim higher! i’m doing my part! are YOU? 🫵🏻

YEEEESS congratulations!!! 🎉

Can’t wait to visit you in Philly!!

I’ve been thinking about everyone’s favorite movie “Don’t Look Up” and have no notes for whoever’s running the current simulation we’re all thriving in.

This is the current CDC webpage for the most recent YRBS. www.cdc.gov/yrbs/results...

A word of advice: Pay attention to the trends reported in the blue box. This is more important than ever... partly because of what is written in the yellow box!

Support LGBTQ+ youth! 🏳️‍🌈

Support data! 📊

What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.