National Education Policy Center

This Federal Policy Really Helped Kids. Now, It’s Gone. A new report on temporary pandemic-era changes to the earned income and child tax credits finds that the shifts reduced child poverty by more than 50%.

A new report on temporary pandemic-era changes to the earned income and child tax credits finds that the shifts reduced child poverty by more than 50%. bit.ly/4r3wEkG

No Free Lunch: The Real Costs of the Federal Education Vouchers Despite some claims to the contrary, the new federal private school choice program is not “free money.”

Despite some claims to the contrary, the new federal private school choice program is not “free money.” bit.ly/4bzC9mo

NEPC Review: Redrawing the Lines: How Purposeful School System Redistricting Can Increase Funding Fairness and Decrease Segregation (New America, September 2025) A New America report argues that states can improve educational equity by redrawing school district boundaries to reduce fiscal and demographic disparities. It models three approaches: blank-slate dis...

New NEPC Review: @newamerica.org report offers a helpful starting point for policy discussions focused on redistricting to address fiscal and demographic inequities across districts.
@christocleve.bsky.social bit.ly/49YimKH

Does K-12 Testing Need a Tune-Up? An upcoming webinar and a new report offer practical advice on implementing “balanced assessment,” a research-based approach designed to improve testing in K-12 education.

An upcoming webinar and a new report offer practical advice on implementing “balanced assessment,” a research-based approach designed to improve testing in K-12 education. @nciea.bsky.social bit.ly/4bgGpqF

NEPC Review: Outmatched: Special Education Can’t Solve Problems Rooted in the Education Delivery System (Center on Reinventing Public Education, October 2025) While U.S. special education has advanced civil rights and educational equity, critics continue to highlight inequities in labeling, segregation, and academic expectations. A recent CRPE report argues...

New NEPC Review: CRPE’s proposed systemwide reforms rest on limited evidence and offer little concrete guidance for protecting students with disabilities. @federicowaitoller.bsky.social @crpe.bsky.social bit.ly/4a5SDRP

NEPC’s Most Popular Newsletters of 2025 DEI, social media bans, private school vouchers costs, public-private partnerships in the developing world, and federal education funding were the topics of the most popular NEPC newsletters of 2025.

NEPC’s Most Popular Newsletters of 2025 bit.ly/4k8Cr61

NEPC Review: Measuring Artificial Intelligence in Education (Bellwether, October 2025) Because AI-powered technologies are rapidly proliferating in education, educators face urgent challenges in evaluating their impacts. Bellwether’s recent report seeks to address this by promoting logi...

New NEPC Review: @bellwetherorg.bsky.social report promotes AI’s inevitability while overlooking contextual complexity and potential harms. bit.ly/4sF8VbG

NEPC Talks Education: An Interview With Roseann Liu and David Backer About School Finance University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Roseann Liu and David Backer about their approaches to K-12 school finance research and why understanding the human d...

In this month's NEPC Talks Education podcast: An interview with Roseann Liu and David Backer about their unique approaches to K-12 school finance research @schooldaves.bsky.social @cmsaldana.bsky.social bit.ly/49kRTbp

Does Florida law even provide for a wheel for someone to be asleep at?

Decades of fraud, waste and abuse in the charter-school sector, but very little awareness of this has broken through. The vast majority of people in the U.S. have little or no idea of what's happening. In fact, among state legislators, what portion really know?

It's probably accurate -- that they will not allow flexibility. But what sort of dispute would they be trying to get before SCOTUS?

It’s an open secret that some charter schools push out kids with behavioral problems, Philly principals say Principals say students offloaded from charters to Philadelphia School District schools are often "counseled out," while they can't remove students from traditional public schools for those reasons.

The ways that many charters shape their enrollment should be big news. (And it's not just kids seen as behavioral problems. See www.tcpress.com/school%E2%80...)
Excellent work from @newskag.bsky.social.

@wagma.bsky.social @carolburris.bsky.social
www.inquirer.com/education/ph...

Opinion: Take note, Gov. Polis: Coloradans have repeatedly said no to school vouchers New federal program is a devil’s bargain and must not override the will of our people.

When voters repeatedly vote down voucher initiatives but their governor invites them in...
Welner & Gebhardt do the easy lifting of explaining why that's not a good thing.

coloradosun.com/2025/12/16/o...

NEPC Talks Education: An Interview With Jarvis Givens About His Book, American Grammar: Race, Education and The Building of a Nation University of Wisconsin‑Madison Assistant Professor Christopher Saldaña interviews Jarvis Givens about his book, American Grammar: Race, Education and The Building of a Nation, which offers a revised ...

New NEPC Talks Education podcast: Jarvis Givens highlights the experiences of Black and Native Americans in the origin story of American education @cmsaldana.bsky.social bit.ly/4afqzft

Yup. Or heavily stratifying opportunities (which is the equivalent of excluding children).

Opinion: Take note, Gov. Polis: Coloradans have repeatedly said no to school vouchers New federal program is a devil’s bargain and must not override the will of our people.

Opinion: Take note, Gov. Polis: Coloradans have repeatedly said no to school vouchers coloradosun.com/2025/12/16/o...

The Hidden Dangers of Meta’s Partnership Offer to Schools The company’s new Instagram School Partnership Program seems designed to make money. It’s not clear that it benefits schools.

“Meta’s use of algorithms in core operations conceals the extent to which it profits from business decisions that prioritize engagement over protecting the psychological health of young people.” @nepc.bsky.social

progressive.org/public-schoo...

NEPC Review: A State-Level Perspective on School Spending and Educational Outcomes (Brookings Institution, September 2025) A large and growing body of high-quality research shows that increased school funding improves student outcomes. A new Brookings Institution report examines this relationship but finds much smaller ef...

New NEPC Review: Despite strong research evidence that increased school funding improves student outcomes, this
@brookings.edu report relies on simplistic statewide comparisons that obscure the true effects of investment in education. @jerseyjazzman.bsky.social bit.ly/3MDO3Rv

This has been true for well over a decade.
nepc.colorado.edu/publication/...

Making the Grade 2025: In an Uncertain Federal Policy Landscape, States Must Prioritize Fair School Funding - Education Law Center FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  NEWARK, N.J. – Today, Education Law Center released, Making the Grade: How Fair is School Funding in Your State?, the latest...

Making the Grade 2025: In an Uncertain Federal Policy Landscape, States Must Prioritize Fair School Funding edlawcenter.org/making-the-g...

What Is Responsible Innovation and How Might It Improve AI-Enabled Edtech? A recent essay proposes using “responsible innovation” to design the AI-enabled edtech of the future.

A recent essay proposes using “responsible innovation” to design the AI-enabled edtech of the future. bit.ly/4iLtheX

But CO's Atty General, Phil Weiser, who is a candidate to replace Gov. Polis, announced yesterday that if elected he would opt the state out of the voucher plan. So the state's eventual participation is unclear.

In fact, Colorado's Gov. Polis appears to be the first D governor to announce that he will opt in to voucher program, without waiting to see of Trump's Treasury Dept allows states the flexibility to design programs for their states that reflect each state's goals and values.

Polis all in on Trump’s tax-credit scholarship while other Dem governors wait and see The program is expected to expand private school choice in states like Colorado that don’t have voucher programs. Polis said not participating would mean leaving millions on the table.

This @chalkbeat article says NC Gov Stein announced his intention to opt into the voucher program. In fact, he vetoed a bill to do so & said he intends to opt in only after Trump's Treasury "issues sound guidance." He's waiting to see if the regs give NC flexibility
www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/202...

I believe the HQT provision was not enforced, right? Or maybe the waivers didn't start immediately? But your point/question is a good one. If time on task increased opportunities to learn (which it should, notwithstanding the reading results), how much of this was just a shift in OTL from X to math?

A second possible (likely?) reason is that the state-test-focused instructional time on reading was so superficial and unengaging that it didn't actually improve students' reading skills. If so, that's a devastating indictment of the NCLB era.

Another thread hinted at, that @mattbarnum.bsky.social might pull on, concerns the reading results. Obviously, schools also increased reading-specific instructional time. One reason for no clear NAEP improvements is, of course, that reading scores are less sensitive to school-level changes. But ...

Agreed.
It would also be helpful to expressly connect the dots. The uptick in NAEP math scores likely followed from increased time on math instruction, which was at the expense of other subjects. Even setting aside the other collateral damage, that's a trade-off that many parents do not support.

New Report Questions the Claimed Success of New Orleans’ Charter School Reform A new report points to “a culture of alienation and control” as part of a critique of a policy brief that found academic gains for New Orleans students as a result of charter conversions.

New @nccsa.bsky.social report points to “a culture of alienation and control” as part of a critique of a policy brief that found academic gains for New Orleans students as a result of charter conversions. bit.ly/48t4pDL

Carol Burris: Another Religious Charter School Applies for Public Funding in Oklahoma, Backed by For-Profit Corporation In this post, Carol Burris reviews the latest challenge to separation of church and state. A religious school has applied for public funding as an online charter school. But that’s not all: t…

My deep dive on the latest attempt to open a religious charter school…with its for-profit operator in the shadows. @dianeravitch.bsky.social @nepc.bsky.social @floridaea.bsky.social dianeravitch.net/2025/12/01/c...