Christopher Peak

Nearly 1/3 of us say we sleep poorly or not enough 😴. And our 24/7 culture makes it tough to GET a good night’s sleep. My public radio series Call to Mind is working on a show about sleep! Do you have problems sleeping? How does it affect your mental health? 📩: calltomind@americanpublicmedia.org

Welcome to the American Winter In the frozen streets of Minneapolis, something profound is happening.

In the frozen streets of Minneapolis, something profound is happening. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Chinese Universities Surge in Global Rankings as U.S. Schools Slip

Chinese universities have been steadily climbing in global rankings that emphasize volume and quality of research, overtaking American institutions — a trend that could accelerate following the Trump administration’s cuts. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...

Dyslexia and the Reading Wars Proven methods for teaching the readers who struggle most have been known for decades. Why do we often fail to use them?

On @newyorker.com this month: Emily Hanford’s podcast, Sold a Story, helped transform what had been a relatively obscure academic debate into an approachable subject for laypeople. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Education Department offloads some work to other agencies as Trump presses for its closure The U.S. Education Department is handing off some of its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the department.

The U.S. Education Department is handing off some of its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the department. apnews.com/article/educ...

Apple Podcasts unveils the most popular shows and trends of 2025 Today, Apple shared the most popular podcasts of 2025, with year-end charts localized for listeners in nearly 100 countries and regions.

"Sold a Story" is again on the list of Apple Podcasts' most shared shows of 2025: www.apple.com/newsroom/202...

Episode 14: The Cuts

New Sold a Story podcast on the history of and recent cuts to education research, and I am HERE FOR IT. www.apmreports.org/episode/2025...

Lawsuit saves massive reading experiment The Trump administration tried to kill the largest reading experiment ever funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm — just months before the yearslong study was complete. The administ...

From @clpeak.bsky.social -- If it hadn’t been for legal action, the results of the largest study on reading might never have been released. But in response to lawsuits, the Department of Education said it would voluntarily reinstate the contract for the study: www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...

Episode 14: The Cuts

A lot of what we know as the science of reading was funded by the federal government. We’ve spent the last few months reporting on what the Trump administration’s cuts mean for that research. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts): www.apmreports.org/episode/2025...

N.Y.C. Schools Change How Reading Is Taught, and Test Scores Rise

New York City’s third-grade reading proficiency shot up nearly 13 points — to 58% — on this year’s state standardized test. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/n...

Excellent summary of the intellectual history of "cueing." These are ideas and citations @clpeak.bsky.social and I spent years poring over to make Sold a Story. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Truly Shifting to Science of Reading Sometimes Takes ‘Balanced Literacy Rehab’ McQuillan: Even with new curricula and good intentions, old teaching habits die hard. How to break the cycle and improve literacy outcomes.

"Adopting a new curriculum is only a first step. Real change is like training for a marathon: buying the right gear doesn’t build endurance." www.the74million.org/article/trul...

Popular Reading Programs Feature 'Multisensory' Instruction. Does It Help? Many elementary school classrooms incorporate touch and movement into reading lessons. But research on the practice is inconclusive.

Research doesn't support using "multisensory" instruction to teach reading, but it's being legislated. "Not that doing multisensory things is going to be harmful," one expert said, but don't expect "those are going to make the difference." www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...

Fewer Parents Are Reading Aloud to Their Kids. Why That Matters Pleasure reading is the best way for emerging readers to maintain their skills in the summer. Getting parents on board can be challenging.

In 2014, 11% of children ages 0 to 2 in the UK spent one to three hours a day on a screen. By 2019, that percentage rose to 42%, according to the National Literacy Trust. www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...

School Reform Program, Known for Science of Reading Approach, Looks to Grow Anonymous donor gives Success For All, featured in ‘Sold a Story’ podcast, $13.5 million to add 150 more schools.

Success for All, the school reform model featured in Sold a Story, received $13.5 million from an anonymous donor to expand to 150 more schools. www.the74million.org/article/scie...

NPR Sues Trump Over Order to Cut Funding

NPR and three public radio stations sue President Trump, alleging his executive order to cut off federal funding violates the Constitution and their First Amendment rights. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/b...

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.

“We’re talking about an entire generation of learning perhaps significantly undermined here,” one college professor said, of students’ reliance on ChatGPT. “It’s short-circuiting the learning process, and it’s happening fast.” nymag.com/intelligence...

Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.

Harvard officials were shocked that such an important letter — bearing the logos of three government agencies, with signatures of three top officials at the bottom — could be sent by a mistake. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/b...

The Pandemic Is Not the Only Reason U.S. Students Are Losing Ground For years, the country’s lowest-scoring students were steadily improving on national tests. Starting around 2013, something changed.

For years, the country’s lowest-scoring students were steadily improving on national tests. Starting around 2013, something changed. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/u...

5 Podcasts Where Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction These twist-filled shows can offer a real-world escape from the drumbeat of news.

Sold a Story was featured in this weekend’s New York Times: “This American Public Media podcast lays out how a deeply flawed teaching method took hold despite having been widely debunked by cognitive scientists.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/a...

We need state curriculum maps for all states ASAP, to support researchers and parents, alike.

My latest article includes links to info from the five states that have published curriculum maps, as well as a few additional sources from @clpeak.bsky.social and more.

When schools buy new reading programs, they look to EdReports. But some of its reviews don’t line up with science. Even though EdReports is only a decade old, it has quickly become a powerful force in the educational publishing industry. Many schools rely on its reviews when they decide which reading programs to b...

New today from @clpeak.bsky.social. A look at a EdReports, one of the most powerful gatekeepers influencing the instructional materials schools buy. www.apmreports.org/story/2025/0...

Sold a Story has a new mini-series. We found a high-poverty school district where nearly every kid can read well. They’ve been teaching the same way for 25 years. But a new law, inspired by our reporting, put that at risk. All three podcast episodes are out now.

Education Department to Fire 1,300 Workers, Gutting Its Staff The layoffs mean that the department will now have a work force of about half the size it did when President Trump took office.

NYT: The Education Department announced on Tuesday that it was firing more than 1,300 workers, effectively gutting the agency that manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/u...

Musk’s Team Must Produce Documents to Comply With Open Records Laws, Judge Says A federal judge in Washington ordered Elon Musk’s team and the Office of Management and Budget to begin releasing internal documents “as soon as practicable.”

DOGE is likely subject to FOIA, a federal judge ruled. The agency had argued it was acting as an advisor to the president, putting its records off-limits until at least 2034. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/u...

11: The Outlier Podcast Episode · Sold a Story · S1 E11 · 31m

A new episode of Sold a Story is available now.
Episode 11: The Outlier
There's a school district in eastern Ohio where virtually all students become good readers by the time they finish third grade. How did they do it? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1...

Trump administration targets Education Department research arm in latest cuts The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is responsible for gathering data on a wide range of topics, including research-backed teaching practices and the state of U.S. student achievement.

"If contracts tied to IES and NCES are indeed terminated, and its research becomes unavailable online, a trove of data gathered over many decades about the state of education in the U.S. could become difficult to access." www.npr.org/2025/02/10/n... @npr.org

Struggling students just posted their worst NAEP reading scores in 32 years The National Assessment for Educational Progress results show a dispiriting and growing gap between students who are academic stand-outs and those who struggle. Reading scores also fell. But fourth gr...

The divide between academic haves and have-nots on the nation's report card was historic: Lower-performing fourth and eighth graders posted the worst reading scores in over 30 years. www.chalkbeat.org/2025/01/29/n...

American Kids Are Getting Even Worse at Reading New national test scores indicate a continuing slide in reading skills.

The declines in students' reading scores started before the pandemic, continued during it and have persisted since. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

NPR and PBS Stations Brace for Funding Battle Under Trump Republicans in Congress have tried to defund public media for decades. With the help of Elon Musk, could they finally make good on their threat?

Republicans in Congress have tried to defund public media for decades. Could they finally make good on their threat? www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/b...