Charter Schools

Source: Harvard PEPG

Date: 6/20/25

The Spillover Impacts of Charter Schools

We estimate the spillover impacts of charter schools on public schools and public school students. We leverage administrative data and quasi-random assignment of charter school openings in Texas using application scores from the State Board of Education. This design capitalizes on the discontinuous increase in approval likelihood for charter school applications that score above a specific threshold to eliminate bias from charter schools' strategic location choice. Preliminary results suggest positive and sizable spillovers on public school test scores and that competition changes public schools' sociodemographic composition. Future work will analyze the mechanisms, including the within-school allocation of instructional resources, as well as student-level impacts on longer-term outcomes.

Curriculum and Teaching

Source: Heritage Foundation

Date: 6/13/25

Restoring Civics Education in All 50 States

A century ago, civics education was inseparable from the teaching of personal responsibility and virtues. Today, civics education has changed drastically-and not for the better. Some states do not have any civics requirements while others do not require students to earn passing scores on civics assessments to graduate high school. State lawmakers should consider policies that require high school students to earn passing grades in a civics course and earn a passing score on a civics assessment before graduating.

Politics, Policy, and School Practices

Source: Manhattan Institute

Date: 6/18/25

An Education Agenda for New York City's Next Mayor

This report presents analyses of the state of education in New York City ahead of the approaching mayoral primaries and election. It focuses on the role that the mayor can and should play in bringing the city's school system to much greater levels of success than it is currently achieving. The underlying theme of this report is that the current depressed state of achievement in the school system is the result of poor decisions made during the de Blasio administration and the slow and timid attempts at reform from the Adams administration. We reject the notion that our schools have declined solely because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic or that the current direction of the federal government will make improvements in our schools. This report points to the successful policies of the Bloomberg administration as evidence that real improvement is possible with an unrelenting focus on school accountability, the expansion of educational opportunity through a dynamic system of new school creation, and the closure or merger of underperforming and under-enrolled schools.

School Finance and Funding

Source: Urban Institute

Date: 6/9/25

Changes to SNAP and Medicaid Would Have Implications for Student Access to School Meals

House Republicans have passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which puts forth several changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But free school meal access has become increasingly intertwined with SNAP. Declines in SNAP receipt can reduce the number of students eligible for school meals without an application and can increase costs for schools providing free meals.

Teacher Education, Quality, and Professional Development

Source: Fordham Institute

Date: 6/11/25

Think Again: Do the returns to teacher experience fizzle out?

For many years, the conventional wisdom in education reform circles was that teachers stopped improving after a few years on the job. This brief challenges that notion based on recent research, summarizes the conditions that foster ongoing teacher improvement, and explores potential implications of this work for federal, state, and local policy.

Review of Apples to Apples: The Definitive Look at School Test Scores in Milwaukee and Wisconsin for 2024

Source: Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

Reviewed by: Benjamin Shear, University of Colorado Boulder

A recent report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) examines publicly available test score data from Spring 2024 in Wisconsin to investigate the relative effectiveness and cost of school choice programs.

The report claims to provide evidence that private schools participating in the state's voucher programs and charter schools yield better academic results as compared with traditional public schools, but Benjamin Shear of the University of Colorado Boulder identifies several critical limitations in the data and analyses behind those claims. NEPC today published Professor Shear's review of WILL's Apples to Apples: The Definitive Look at School Test Scores in Milwaukee and Wisconsin for 2024.

A Legal Advocacy Guide: Combatting Racial Discrimination and Censorship in K-12 Public Schools

By: National Center for Youth Law

This guide from the National Center for Youth Law is meant to serve as a tool for understanding legal protections that can help students, families, and educators push back against racial discrimination and censorship in K-12 public schools.