The hottest Education Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Education Topics

Stolen Youth at Sarah Lawrence

Disaffected Newsletter • 999 implied HN points • 06 Aug 24
🚌 Education School System Pedagogy Cultural Studies Educational Philosophy
  1. A documentary called 'Stolen Youth' explores how a toxic adult created a harmful cult at Sarah Lawrence College.
  2. The college's approach to education is criticized for promoting extreme ideologies, which some believe contributed to the cult's formation.
  3. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding the effects of educational philosophies on students' lives.

Childhood and Education #15: Got To Get Out

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2329 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
🚌 Education Homeschooling School Policy Technology Use Bullying Discipline Teachers School choice
  1. If a child is being seriously bullied, the right move is to remove them from that environment or find a different school, not to tell them to toughen up; staying often makes things worse.
  2. Phones in class are a major attention sink, and strict bans with real enforcement tend to reduce disruptions and raise engagement and test scores after an initial adjustment period.
  3. Don’t automatically defer to education 'experts' — parents can use homeschooling, microschools, tutors, or AI effectively and should evaluate options rather than assume traditional schools are always best.

My Next Decision Making Class is Launching on November 18th!

Thinking in Bets • 138 implied HN points • 11 Oct 24
🚌 Education Teaching Learning Courses Skills Workshops
  1. A decision-making class starts on November 18th and will run for three weeks with live zoom sessions. It’s designed to help people make better decisions using a structured process.
  2. You'll learn what makes decision-making hard, like cognitive biases, and how to work better as a team when making choices.
  3. The course includes interactive sessions and projects, and past students found it transformative and beneficial for both personal and career growth.

Can automation help make the humanities more human?

Res Obscura • 3732 implied HN points • 06 Nov 25
🚌 Education Humanities Automation AI Tools Learning methods
  1. Automation can free people from boring tasks, allowing more time for creative and thoughtful activities. This means we can focus on what makes us human, like art and philosophy.
  2. Generative AI can help in research by organizing and analyzing data that humans might find tedious, but it shouldn't replace personal thinking and creativity. It's important to use it to enhance learning, not to avoid it.
  3. In education, especially for younger students, facing difficult challenges is crucial for real learning. It's vital to encourage critical thinking and creativity instead of letting machines do the work for us.

College-for-All Means Homework-for-All

Five’s Substack • 1358 implied HN points • 22 Jul 24
🚌 Education Higher education Student life Work-life balance Time management Critical Thinking
  1. Many college students have a lot of work and study to do outside of class, making their schedule very busy. It's common for students to work part-time or even full-time jobs while studying.
  2. Homework is really important for truly understanding subjects in college. Doing the readings and assignments helps students think on their own and learn more effectively.
  3. It's vital to protect students' time for learning, not just to earn degrees. Education should be about more than just getting a job; it should allow for real thinking and personal growth.
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Bayes For Everyone

Astral Codex Ten • 14660 implied HN points • 30 May 25
🚌 Education Teaching Methods Philosophy Cognitive Science Student Engagement
  1. Teaching needs to blend old and new learning methods. By mixing traditional storytelling with modern scientific methods, we can help students connect better and fall in love with learning.
  2. Bayes' theorem is best understood visually and emotionally. Using simple images and relatable examples can make this complex idea easier and more engaging for students.
  3. We should teach students why concepts matter in real life. Connecting topics like Bayes' theorem to their interests can make learning more relevant and impactful.

We Gave Students Laptops and Took Away Their Brains

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2137 implied HN points • 05 Dec 25
🚌 Education EdTech K-12 Learning Science Education & Policy
  1. Schools’ growing use of laptops and screens is linked to worse student performance over time.
  2. Consuming information through screens fractures attention, weakens memory, and erodes deep, rigorous thinking.
  3. Many children now show less focus, less interest in reading, and overall lower cognitive skills than past generations.

Columbia’s Modern Arab Studies Chair Contenders Have One Thing in Common: Hating Israel

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 343 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Education & Policy Curriculum Academic Freedom Campus politics
  1. Columbia is overhauling its Middle Eastern studies programs and replacing the Modern Arab Studies chair after losing federal funding and reaching a settlement.
  2. Several top candidates and committee members have publicly taken strongly critical positions toward Israel, including framing violent events as responses to Israeli policies, which raises concerns about ideological bias.
  3. Despite university promises to ensure "balanced" curricula, the candidates' views suggest the program may stay politically slanted, fueling accusations and institutional consequences.

In a Top Math Contest, the Cheaters Are Winning

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 445 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🚌 Education Academic Integrity Standardized tests Artificial Intelligence Online Platforms Education & Policy
  1. Cheating in top math contests has become widespread and is now threatening the integrity and future of those competitions.
  2. Exam copies and answers are being bought and sold openly on global online platforms, making leaks easy to access and exploit.
  3. AI has amplified and accelerated the cheating problem, creating a bigger threat that serves as a warning for the wider education system.

How to Evaluate Phone Policies in Schools

After Babel • 448 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
🚌 Education School Policy Assessment Research Methods Ed-tech Administration Data Analysis
  1. A free, research-informed toolkit gives schools ready-made surveys and measures to track how phone policies affect students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
  2. It works for both single-school evaluations and large, rigorous studies—Qualtrics formats and optional collaboration with the Stanford Social Media Lab support longitudinal tracking and advanced analysis.
  3. The toolkit adds practical analysis help (a manual scoring guide, a customizable survey builder, and a coming Data Dashboard), but it doesn’t by itself establish definitive causality without stronger study designs.

Boys can read

Of Boys and Men • 167 implied HN points • 28 Feb 26
🚌 Education K-12 Literacy Gender gap Higher Ed Policy Tutoring Enrollment
  1. Boys lag behind girls in reading from early grades through high school, finishing roughly a year behind on average.
  2. Boys do a bit better in math, but that advantage is much smaller; math scores don’t explain college enrollment gaps the way GPA, course-taking, and college expectations do, which helps account for lower college enrollment among boys.
  3. Some tutoring and instructionally aligned programs show promise for closing the reading gap and may help boys more, but the evidence is limited and researchers should always report gender-disaggregated results so effective policies can be scaled.

Actually-existing UATX

In My Tribe • 744 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Teaching Pedagogy Ed-tech Administration Student experience
  1. Students are earnest, hardworking, and take initiative. Many land internships as freshmen, so the school suits motivated, practical learners.
  2. The school still struggles with poor coordination and frequent changes of plan that create avoidable snafus. It needs better formal communication and modest structure without turning into rigid bureaucracy.
  3. Teachers should give clearer road maps but are experimenting with AI tools like “vibe-coding,” “vibe-reading,” and “vibe-tutoring” to improve learning and writing. The plan is to have AI show suggested edits while leaving rewrites to the students so they learn.

5 Actions to Reduce Smartphones in School

The Analog Family • 319 implied HN points • 30 Aug 24
🚌 Education School Policy Parenting Student Engagement Technology Use
  1. Schools should encourage families to delay giving their kids smartphones until high school. This helps kids focus better on their education.
  2. Parents can help by communicating through school offices instead of texting their kids during class. This keeps kids from being distracted by their phones.
  3. Activities and teams should not require smartphones for participation. Schools can find other ways to share information that includes all students.

Education Links, 1/30/2026

In My Tribe • 334 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Pedagogy Learning Science Campus politics Education & Policy Student experience
  1. Colleges should promise students real career experience, teach adaptable technical skills, and build the uniquely human strengths that machines can’t replicate before graduation.
  2. Research shows learning is faster when students study worked examples, explore open-ended problems, learn in spaced chunks with breaks, and automate basic skills so working memory can focus on higher‑order thinking.
  3. Large outside funding and DEI operations can influence campus culture and how discrimination complaints are handled, so universities need stronger transparency, oversight, and accountability.

Calling All Future Medium Superstars: Medium School Opens Its Doors

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 1059 implied HN points • 20 Jul 24
🚌 Education Writing Online Courses Content creation Community Building Coaching
  1. Medium School is a new course that helps people write on Medium and earn money. It's designed to build confidence and make writing fun.
  2. The course is only $9 a month and gives access to a community of fellow writers and helpful resources. It's great for anyone wanting to improve their writing skills.
  3. You'll also get access to a Substack School for extra support on that platform. Both platforms can work together without doubling your work.

Corporate Soap Opera at UATX

In My Tribe • 531 implied HN points • 17 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher education Governance Administration Curriculum Campus politics Academic Freedom
  1. Personality and ego conflicts get amplified into supposed principled battles. Many disputes are more about people than deep ideological differences.
  2. The school’s challenges go beyond DEI to include debates over AI, curriculum, and earlier rushed commitments. A lack of shared priorities means individuals launch initiatives that often collide.
  3. Stronger internal processes and some bureaucracy are needed to manage trade-offs and reduce drama. A change in leadership may have made the place better positioned to improve things.

Tyler Cowen's AI Campus

In My Tribe • 531 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher education EdTech AI Education Curriculum Pedagogy Education & Policy
  1. Higher education can be reshaped around AI: students pair with mentors while AI designs syllabi, lessons, and assessments, and a big part of current teaching should focus on learning how to work with AI during this fast-changing transition.
  2. Small, AI-built apps and free-form natural-language interfaces can replace clunky courseware, letting users ask plain questions like “When is my next paper due?” and get immediate answers, and these tools can be prototyped very quickly.
  3. Policy teaching should be comparative and skeptical: markets sometimes fail but governments also fail due to information limits and perverse incentives, so solutions should weigh Pigovian-style fixes against Coasean bargaining, community governance, and constitutional design.

What Happened to Columbia’s Antisemitism Monitor?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 482 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Campus politics Student activism Civil Rights Compliance Legal issues
  1. Columbia agreed to a $221 million settlement with the federal government and was required to create a monitorship to address allegations of antisemitism.
  2. Bart M. Schwartz, a veteran compliance consultant from Guidepost Solutions, was appointed to oversee the university’s compliance with the agreement.
  3. Insiders report the university failed to fully cooperate with the watchdog, undermining the monitorship’s effectiveness and fueling campus controversy, including protests over suspensions of SJP and JVP.

Maybe a project?

In My Tribe • 151 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Teaching EdTech Assessment Economics AI Tools
  1. An AI teaching assistant could make freshman econ students fluent by using spaced repetition and testing them in new situations.
  2. A prototype demo for production possibility frontier exercises exists online, but it currently checks answers against hard-coded solutions rather than giving live AI corrections.
  3. The plan is to add real AI-driven feedback and a wider variety of examples so students get adaptive practice and become truly fluent.

My Next Decision Making Class is Launching on November 18th!

Thinking in Bets • 99 implied HN points • 10 Oct 24
🚌 Education Online Learning Decision-making Career development Personal Growth Workshops
  1. A new decision-making class starts on November 18th, running for a month with interactive sessions.
  2. Students will learn a 6-step process for better decision making and how to overcome cognitive biases.
  3. The course includes nine live sessions, projects, and access to a community of peers for networking.

The Kollel and the Quad

What Is Called Thinking? • 146 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher education Graduate studies University funding Civic engagement
  1. Both the Haredi kollel system and many humanities departments claim intrinsic value to block accountability while still drawing public subsidies.
  2. What began as narrow exemptions for elite practitioners has expanded into mass entitlement, protected by self-certification, ideological gatekeeping, and the romanticizing of poverty to excuse low standards and avoided obligations.
  3. A better model pairs deep study with civic duty; examples like hesder yeshivot and veterans-turned-scholars show that service and learning can reinforce each other, so intrinsic value should come with reciprocal public responsibility.

The Stamina Gap

The Ruffian • 768 implied HN points • 10 Jan 26
🚌 Education Learning Cognition Inequality Pedagogy Technology Literacy
  1. Deep, sustained focus — cognitive endurance or mental stamina — is becoming a scarce and valuable skill because modern life mostly rewards short, fast mental tasks.
  2. Less advantaged people often have lower stamina and therefore fall behind as tasks drag on, but quiet, independent practice (even via cognitive games) can build endurance and improve outcomes, and classroom norms and policies strongly affect who gets that practice.
  3. AI and other convenience tools can speed up thinking but also replace the effort that trains slow, deep thinking, so over-reliance risks eroding the very capacity needed for hard, complex work.

The 5 Interview Mistakes You're Making Without Realizing

Behavioral OS for Techies • 259 implied HN points • 29 Aug 24
🚌 Education Interview Tips Career development Soft skills Technical Skills
  1. Make sure your answers during an interview are detailed and clear. It helps the interviewer see that you understand the topic well.
  2. Before jumping to solutions, always ask questions to clarify the problem. This shows you're thoughtful and focused on finding the right solution.
  3. Don't forget to showcase your real-world experiences. Sharing relevant stories makes your answers more relatable and authentic.

What Qatar Bought from Carnegie Mellon for $1 Billion

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 315 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom Campus politics University Governance
  1. Qatar has poured far more money into American universities than other countries, spending about $6.6 billion since the 1960s and outpacing China.
  2. Carnegie Mellon received roughly $1 billion from Qatar and runs a campus in Doha.
  3. A Jewish student's antisemitism lawsuit and unsealed court documents have raised questions about whether large Qatari gifts come with strings or influence university decisions and policies.

When The Times asked, “Why is Britain educating China’s scientists?” What did they really overlook? by Michael Jinghan ZENG

Pekingnology • 101 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🚌 Education Higher education University funding Academic Freedom STEM Education Research Policy
  1. Treating Chinese students as strategic threats and closing academic openness will damage the UK's universities and its role as a global centre of ideas.
  2. UK universities depend heavily on tuition from international students, especially Chinese postgrads, and losing that income would trigger layoffs, cuts, and a fall in research capacity.
  3. The global higher-education map is changing as Asian universities rise and students have more options, so the share of Chinese students in the UK will likely adjust; narrowing the focus to ‘British’ STEM while sidelining the humanities would weaken the UK's soft power and intellectual influence.

The NYT Recruiting Brochure for New College

Can We Still Govern? • 808 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom University Governance Funding Enrollment Campus culture Athletics
  1. Major coverage presents the takeover as a manageable makeover but leaves out many critical facts and voices, mostly quoting people aligned with the new regime.
  2. The political takeover has sharply curtailed academic freedom: programs were closed, books removed, faculty were fired or denied tenure, and classroom speech is chilled by state pressure and surveillance.
  3. The overhaul is politically driven and financially unsustainable — per‑student costs have exploded, academic standards dropped with heavy athletic recruiting, and the campus now depends on ongoing government subsidies.

Education Links, 1/25/2026

In My Tribe • 273 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed K-12 Education & Policy
  1. Top universities get far more of their revenue from endowments and research grants than from tuition, so students are a smaller part of the financial model.
  2. Many young people are skipping both factory jobs and high-end tech roles, creating a talent pipeline gap that schools could address by improving math prep, offering job shadowing, and creating tech pathways that don't require top-level math skills.
  3. Long-term success depends less on raw intelligence and more on character: initiative, self-control, good relationships, and doing real, meaningful projects help teenagers become thriving adults.

SEND help

Comment is Freed • 102 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🚌 Education Policy Reform Funding Schools Inclusion
  1. The government plans to reform SEND by reducing the number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and overhauling a system many think isn’t working, aiming to improve outcomes even though any savings are likely years away.
  2. The proposals are politically sensitive and have already attracted organised opposition from disability charities, teacher unions and parents, which is why ministers delayed the white paper to build support.
  3. The reforms are technically complex with a long transition after the next election, so many details could go wrong and pushback on specific measures is likely even if the broad principles survive.

La pieuvre des désirs

L'Atelier Galita • 79 implied HN points • 09 Oct 24
🚌 Education Career development Personal Growth Psychology Philosophy Self-help
  1. Finding a career that fits you is sometimes hard. It's tough to know what you really love doing, even though other factors seem easier to identify.
  2. Tim Urban's idea of the 'octopus of desires' shows that our different aspirations can clash with each other. You can't easily satisfy all your desires at once.
  3. There are five types of desires: personal, social, moral, practical, and lifestyle. It's important to prioritize these to find better balance and fulfillment in your life.

Freedom to write, freedom to research, to do something together: An interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat 

read • 10220 implied HN points • 31 Jul 23
🚌 Education Academia Research Writing Income Feedback
  1. Scholars on Substack are reaching new audiences and earning income for their research and writing.
  2. Substack provides academics like Ruth Ben-Ghiat with financial freedom to pursue public-interfacing research.
  3. Academic writers use Substack for engaging with readers, testing new ideas, and shaping their research through feedback.

2025 SAT Data Drop

Cremieux Recueil • 211 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
🚌 Education Standardized Testing College Admissions Data Analysis State Policy
  1. Longstanding score gaps between well‑identified demographic groups remain essentially unchanged and are at levels seen for decades.
  2. Most racial/ethnic groups show similar score variability, but Asian students have much higher variance, possibly because the category is more diverse or because high performers are more spread out.
  3. Male scores are slightly higher and more variable at the national level, but that male advantage disappears in Michigan — where all students take the SAT — highlighting that selective test participation shapes national patterns.

Yes, Affirmative Action Justifies Discrimination

Cremieux Recueil • 893 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher education Admissions Affirmative Action Meritocracy Race Public Policy
  1. Affirmative action often results in beneficiaries being, on average, less qualified by standard ability measures than those selected without preference, which creates measurable performance gaps.
  2. Because those gaps devalue the credentials of favored groups, it can be rational for employers or consumers to avoid or discriminate against beneficiaries to protect quality.
  3. These effects misallocate talent, strengthen credentialism, and lack solid evidence of compensating benefits, making affirmative action both practically harmful and morally questionable.

Does education increase intelligence and does it matter?

The Infinitesimal • 539 implied HN points • 27 Jul 24
🚌 Education Cognitive skills Statistical Methods
  1. Education seems to improve specific skills rather than overall intelligence. This means going to school might help you get better at certain subjects instead of making you smarter in a general way.
  2. The study raising these points had some issues in how it was set up. This makes us wonder about the validity of its conclusions regarding education and intelligence.
  3. A strong theory behind how education impacts intelligence is important for clear understanding. Without it, we might misinterpret results and make broad claims that don’t hold up.

Human Nature, Nick Fuentes, Education Exchange

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 984 implied HN points • 11 Dec 25
🚌 Education Policy Research Higher Ed Media Literacy Social Class Inequality
  1. Humans are relatively monogamous compared with chimpanzees and gorillas, with an estimated monogamy rating around two-thirds.
  2. Mainstream media show ideological blindspots, so tools that compare coverage and highlight underreported stories can help readers spot bias and find missing reporting.
  3. Recent studies link social exposure, personality, and political beliefs: wealthy people’s local exposure to poor neighbors can reduce their support for redistribution, personality traits predict everyday behaviors, and sizable minorities in parts of the Republican coalition hold distorted views of the Holocaust.

University Civics Centers: what is the point?

In My Tribe • 258 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Civic Education Curriculum Campus politics Public Policy
  1. State-funded civics centers are being created to teach citizenship and foundational texts, but their purpose is unclear: are they meant to reform universities or to educate citizens for self-government?
  2. Nonviolent, disciplined protest and reliance on courts are presented as more effective and constructive ways to protect rights and persuade the public, while violent direct action risks turning movements into public-order problems.
  3. Many civics centers are bureaucratic and face trade-offs with other priorities; focused events like teach-ins could be valuable, but students are overextended and institutions need to consolidate and prioritize initiatives.

When life is a metaphor

SPARC '24 JC Blog • 199 implied HN points • 27 Aug 24
🚌 Education Learning Pedagogy Creativity Personal Growth Social Skills
  1. Stepping out of your comfort zone can lead to personal growth. Trying new activities and meeting different people helps you learn more about yourself.
  2. Learning can happen in unexpected ways. Sometimes, you realize you've grown just by reflecting on your experiences rather than actively studying something new.
  3. Creating a supportive social group can inspire creativity and curiosity. Surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals makes it easier to explore new ideas and develop your passions.

Truth, Trust, and the Case for Viewpoint Diversity

Unsafe Science • 106 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Academic Freedom Research Integrity Public Trust
  1. Viewpoint diversity is essential for getting closer to the truth in unsettled or politicized areas because it encourages competing hypotheses, adversarial collaboration, and stronger tests of ideas.
  2. Framing calls for intellectual pluralism as merely a conservative or authoritarian plot is misleading; the case for viewpoint diversity predates modern politics and its advocates are not uniformly partisan.
  3. Many academic fields are heavily left-leaning, which fosters self-censorship and biased scholarship, so increasing ideological diversity would improve research, teaching, and public trust.

Have universities become bastions of ideology instead of truth?

Heterodox STEM • 206 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom Free speech Campus politics Student activism
  1. Many universities show ideological conformity, with measurable patterns of disagreement and exclusion on campus.
  2. That conformity risks harming truth-seeking—examples like frequent deplatforming around topics such as Israel-Palestine show both sides try to silence opponents, though the full effect on research and teaching is still uncertain.
  3. Policy responses should protect academic freedom with clear time, place, and manner rules and avoid treating exposure to opposing viewpoints as harassment or creating biased protections for particular groups.