The hottest Education Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Education Topics

Open Thread 388

Astral Codex Ten • 2477 implied HN points • 30 Jun 25
🚌 Education Schooling Curriculum Regulation Parental involvement
  1. The Alpha School received mixed reviews, with some people sharing positive experiences while others had negative ones, often discussing issues related to admissions and tuition costs.
  2. There's a discussion about whether schools could shorten their curriculum to just two hours a day and still be effective, which raises questions about the current school system's structure.
  3. A reader is seeking professionals with FDA regulatory experience to provide feedback on a new tool for life science labs. This shows there's a need for better solutions in regulatory documentation.

Write a Newsletter 52 Weeks in a Row and Watch It Change Your Life

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 2118 implied HN points • 27 Jan 24
🚌 Education Writing Publishing Content creation Skill development Online Courses
  1. Writing a newsletter weekly for a year can build consistency and discipline. It's about showing up even when things aren't perfect.
  2. Doing this helps improve your writing skills. After a year, you'll have a lot of content and feel more confident in your writing.
  3. You might discover new interests by writing regularly. It allows you to explore what topics truly excite you as you go.

Donald Trump vs. Academia: A War on Science or a Loss of Trust?

Heterodox STEM • 355 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom Campus culture Curriculum Research Ethics Science Policy
  1. Public trust in science depends more on shared values and perceived neutrality than on education, and when topics become politicized people often assume scientists are biased and stop trusting them.
  2. Academia has become ideologically one-sided and built large administrative structures like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that many see as promoting activism over open inquiry and silencing dissent.
  3. Some scientists are pushing back by speaking out, cutting ties with politicized institutions or publishers, and calling for reform or new institutions because they fear silence will erode the integrity of science.

Picturing my students

In My Tribe • 243 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher Ed Teaching EdTech Curriculum Student learning Professional development
  1. The instructor has 34 students across three sections and used student photos plus an AI-built flash-card app to try to learn names, though the images had to be extracted manually first.
  2. AI coding tools are shifting from expecting professional toolchain knowledge to enabling "vibe-coding," letting amateurs create usable software without downloading or configuring complex developer environments.
  3. Students should learn vibe-coding, document their process with AI tools, and keep up with rapid AI coding progress so they aren’t handicapped entering organizations today.
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Finding Ourselves in Fairy Tales: a new online program at Pacifica Graduate Institute

The Art of Enchantment, with Dr Sharon Blackie • 1797 implied HN points • 13 Feb 24
🚌 Education Myth Psychology Therapy Narrative
  1. The program at Pacifica Graduate Institute offers an eight-month training in personal narrative work, suitable for clinicians/therapists and individuals interested in deepening their personal work with fairy tales and storytelling.
  2. Participants will explore fairy tales as a reflection of the collective unconscious, use fairy tales to rewrite self-narratives, and learn practices for personal growth and therapeutic applications.
  3. The course structure includes monthly recorded lectures, live Zoom discussions, resource lists, and creative prompts, aiming for an interactive and engaging learning experience.

Seizing the moment

Becoming Noble • 2093 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
🚌 Education Curriculum Reform System Learning
  1. The education system can be seen as a risk to freedom, as it conditions individuals to align with the state and managerial control.
  2. State-supported education aims to disconnect the young from traditional loyalties and mold them into supporters of the regime through certification.
  3. Challenging the current educational system's suppression of independent learning is crucial to combat bureaucratic expansion and foster self-governance.

Not the Right Kind of Provocation

Freddie deBoer • 5971 implied HN points • 02 Dec 24
🚌 Education Pedagogy Literacy Education reform Equity School Systems
  1. In education, there's a big debate about the best way to teach reading. Some say phonics is better, but it's not as clear cut as people think.
  2. Many believe that teaching methods can completely change students' success, but individual talent and background often play a bigger role in how well they do.
  3. The media and education discussions often ignore important questions about ability differences among students, focusing instead on minor teaching method fights.

The power of having the same teacher again

Granted • 3234 implied HN points • 31 Oct 23
🚌 Education Reforms Research Policy Implementation Relationships
  1. Looping, which involves keeping students with the same teacher for multiple years, has shown to have benefits like increased test scores, attendance, and decreased disciplinary incidents.
  2. Small effect sizes in looping studies may have practical significance when aggregated across many students; looping could have stronger effects on attitudes and behaviors than standardized test scores.
  3. When considering looping in education, it's important to address concerns such as potential teacher burnout, unintended consequences, and the misattribution of successful educational practices in other countries to looping.

Query to Self: Is It, This Semester Worth Incorporating in My Classes My Introductory Digression on: "The Liberal Arts, Education, & 'AI'"?

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 146 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher Ed Curriculum Teaching Liberal Arts Digital learning Skills Development
  1. The liberal arts originally meant practical skills that let people without land or inherited power navigate and survive in a complex, literate society.
  2. Those arts form a modern curriculum for people whose main asset is their mind, preparing them to use knowledge as their primary form of capital.
  3. With AI becoming part of our shared intelligence, education should teach students to use AI to deepen their connection to humanity’s knowledge instead of letting it quietly hollow out human judgment and autonomy.

Quantitative Long-Run Global Economic History: Econ 196: Seminar: Special Topics in Economics (Spring 2026)

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 123 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
🚌 Education Higher education Course design Economic History Economics Data science Quantitative Methods
  1. The course is a quantitative, long-run tour of global economic history covering everything from early humans and the rise of agriculture to industrialization, globalization, and modern attention/info/biotech economies, with a focus on causes of growth, inequality, and institutions.
  2. The pedagogy stresses hands-on data-science methods—sampling, estimation, forecasting, simulation, and counterfactual modeling—designed to let both humanists and quants learn to model parts of the world economy without prior coding experience.
  3. There are firm expectations: mandatory pre-class readings and a short assignment answering five questions (including on using AI/LLMs), and prompt submission is required to shape the next class session.

Childhood and Education #11: The Art of Learning

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2060 implied HN points • 27 Jun 25
🚌 Education Childhood Learning Teaching Methods
  1. Tracking in schools helps kids learn better by grouping them based on ability, not just age. This way, each child gets the support they need to thrive.
  2. Reading early and often is really important for kids. It opens up their world to more learning and makes parenting easier.
  3. The way schools teach math often makes it harder for students to enjoy and understand the subject. We should focus on teaching it in a way that keeps kids engaged and wanting to learn.

Weak and Strong Answer to a Behavioral Interview Question

Behavioral OS for Techies • 199 implied HN points • 28 Jul 24
🚌 Education Career Guidance Interview Tips Personal Development Professional Skills
  1. When answering behavioral interview questions, it’s important to provide specific details about your experience. Just saying what happened isn't enough; you should include numbers and outcomes to show your impact.
  2. Strong answers should demonstrate technical knowledge, leadership, and strategic thinking. Showing how you solved problems and led a team makes a big difference.
  3. Communication with clients during challenges is key. Keeping clients updated and involved helps build trust, which can lead to better relationships in the long run.

Fun, Not Fear: Rebuilding University Assessment for the Machine-Learning Era, & Going Beyond to Modes of Research-Analytical Practice

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher education Pedagogy Assessment EdTech Curriculum Student learning
  1. Use outside-the-class work plus short face-to-face interviews or check-ins to assess students, because oral exams stress-test real understanding and make grading fair even when students have powerful ML tools at hand.
  2. Teach students to use modern advanced machine-learning models as intellectual force multipliers by training them in the seven labors—survey, identify live issues, hone questions, research, analyze, store, and persuade—and by emphasizing provenance, triangulation, and small analytic scaffolds so tools accelerate thinking without replacing it.
  3. Recenter higher education on play and craft: make learning fun and practical by practicing prompting, debugging, oral explanation, and producing reusable artifacts, and budget the extra instructor time needed to do this well.

Antisemitism Investigations Hit Three Big Public School Districts

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 445 implied HN points • 24 Nov 25
🚌 Education K-12 School Policy Civil Rights School Safety Student Rights
  1. A House committee opened investigations into Fairfax County, Berkeley, and Philadelphia public school districts over allegations they failed to address antisemitism.
  2. The committee has asked each district for anonymized charts of antisemitic complaints and any documents or communications related to antisemitism, Judaism, or Israel.
  3. The probe, led by Republicans on the House Education Committee, warns the districts they could lose federal funding if found to have violated federal law.

The President Wants to Fix Higher Ed. Here’s How.

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1720 implied HN points • 15 Jul 25
🚌 Education Higher Ed Reform Funding Political Discourse Ideology
  1. There is a belief that universities are not fulfilling their promises to the public and this needs to change.
  2. Many people agree that higher education is facing serious problems, with concerns about biased ideologies taking over.
  3. Efforts are being made to reform universities, but there needs to be a more organized approach to truly make a difference.

How Jonathan Haidt Won the Fight Against Smartphones in Schools

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 4655 implied HN points • 30 Dec 24
🚌 Education Teaching Methods Child development Digital Literacy School Policy Parenting
  1. Having rules about smartphone use in schools helps students connect better with their teachers. Many teachers noticed students paying more attention and being more respectful after limiting phone use.
  2. The shift away from screens in the classroom has made a positive difference in students' behavior and engagement. Teachers are seeing students who are more willing to participate and communicate.
  3. Promoting more unsupervised play can help children develop important social skills. This balance is important to counteract the heavy use of technology in their lives.

Is This STEM?

Life Since the Baby Boom • 1383 implied HN points • 04 Aug 25
🚌 Education STEM Higher Ed Training Workforce
  1. The definition of STEM seems to be shifting, and some jobs that don't require advanced math or science are being labeled as STEM. This might make it easier for people to claim they're part of this field.
  2. Women are increasingly represented in STEM degrees and the tech industry, but many roles in healthcare are being counted as STEM without needing crucial skills like calculus or organic chemistry.
  3. It's important to ensure that a clear understanding of what constitutes a STEM job exists. Not all technical jobs necessarily fit this definition, and redefining it could impact workforce training and economic competitiveness.

The Tale of the Strawberries

Cremieux Recueil • 507 implied HN points • 13 Nov 25
🚌 Education Measurement Trends Statistics Learning Comparisons
  1. Trends can look similar, but the reasons behind them can be very different. Just because two places produce more strawberries doesn't mean they do it the same way.
  2. Measurement invariance is important. This concept means you can’t just compare numbers across different times or places without understanding how they were measured.
  3. Not all trends matter equally. Sometimes the reasons behind the changes are significant, and other times they might not be. It's essential to dig deeper to understand what the numbers really mean.

Learning to Be Human

New World Same Humans • 32 implied HN points • 22 Feb 26
🚌 Education AI Education Pedagogy Child development Ethics
  1. Before deciding how to teach, we must decide what kind of humans we want to create and what qualities we value.
  2. AI can produce fluent answers that only look like understanding, so young children should have minimal AI exposure and lots of human interaction to learn attention, listening, and real judgment.
  3. The arrival of powerful AI makes it urgent to redesign education to protect human freedom, wisdom, and the things that remain distinctively human.

2 Juicy Headline Hacks That’ll Make You Better Than 95% of Writers

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 1178 implied HN points • 11 Mar 24
🚌 Education Writing Tips Online Learning Content creation Professional development Marketing Strategies
  1. Spend more time writing your headlines than your content. A great headline can attract attention and get people to read your work.
  2. Use the Rule of 10 to write multiple headlines before choosing the best one. This helps avoid overthinking and lets your creativity flow.
  3. Follow the 4Ps: identify the problem, person, product, and promise in your headline to make it more compelling and clear for your readers.

Childhood and Education #12: College Admissions

Don't Worry About the Vase • 1433 implied HN points • 30 Jul 25
🚌 Education College Admissions Standardized Testing Student experience Higher education
  1. College admissions are often about who can play the game better, rather than just academic achievements. This makes the process feel unfair to many students who meet traditional qualifications.
  2. Writing a college application essay is very different from simply sharing your true self. Many students feel pressured to write what they think admissions officers want to hear, sometimes leading to dishonesty.
  3. The current admissions system rewards conformity and doesn't always recognize exceptional talent. Some students spend their high school years gaming the system instead of focusing on genuine achievements.

Bringing the science of learning to parent night

The Bell Ringer • 79 implied HN points • 23 Aug 24
🚌 Education Parenting Teaching Learning Literacy Child development
  1. Many teachers believe that parents are not involved enough in their children's education. They feel that more engagement from families could lead to better support for students.
  2. Parents want to learn how to help their kids succeed in school, especially through understanding learning science. This can strengthen the partnership between parents and teachers.
  3. Schools are starting to share effective learning strategies with parents, like metacognition and retrieval practices, which can help kids study better and improve their overall learning experience.

The School Bell Rings: Time for Class

Musings on Markets • 1778 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
🚌 Education Teaching Learning Finance Curriculum Professional development
  1. Learning finance can be accessible! You don’t need a fancy background, just some curiosity and a bit of effort.
  2. Understanding the basics, like how money flows in businesses and what financial terms mean, is super important. It sets you up for success in finance classes.
  3. There are different ways to learn. You can choose free online classes or paid ones, depending on what fits your time and budget best.

On Rebuilding

The Save Journalism Committee • 309 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
🚌 Education Journalism Media Civics Newsletter Careers
  1. A forthcoming essay called "The Curiosity Crisis" will lay out a renewed focus on the core reasons some knowledge systems flourish while others crack and decay.
  2. Paid subscriptions are currently paused, free subscribers will still get periodic pieces, and monetization may return in a new form later.
  3. A reporter’s dispatch from Syria is highlighted as a clear example of what rebuilding looks like, and there are plans for careful, selective collaborations with former colleagues—only promoting work that truly seems excellent.

Anyone Want a Talk?

David Friedman’s Substack • 53 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
🚌 Education Lectures Workshops Conferences
  1. A speaker will be in Chile and Argentina in the second half of March and in Europe for two weeks in late April and early May and is available to give talks.
  2. You can arrange a talk by contacting them via their website, Facebook, or the email address they provided.
  3. A large online sample of past talks is available to review before scheduling.

Zachary Patterson: University ‘decolonization’ is a threat to academic freedom

Heterodox STEM • 384 implied HN points • 23 Nov 25
🚌 Education Higher education Academic Freedom Curriculum University Policy Campus politics Decolonization
  1. Universities are adopting decolonization plans that aim to decentre Eurocentric knowledge and cultivate a stated “critical consciousness” across programs, drawing on critical theory and post‑colonial ideas.
  2. Academic freedom and political neutrality are important for universities to act as truth‑seeking institutions, and when a university takes political positions it can make faculty feel less free to teach, research, or comment on opposing views.
  3. Decolonization efforts are presented as rooted in thinkers like Paulo Freire and Frantz Fanon and are portrayed as a neo‑Marxist or radical political approach that could impose an agenda on curriculum, risk public trust, and jeopardize funding.

Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born

Escaping Flatland • 2889 implied HN points • 26 Jul 23
🚌 Education Creativity Curiosity Mentorship Solitude Learning
  1. Great ideas are fragile and can be easily killed by external influences like coworking spaces or groupthink.
  2. Solitude is crucial for creativity, allowing for the development of unique perspectives and groundbreaking work.
  3. Creative individuals are willing to linger in confusion, surfacing new questions rather than rushing to answers.

The All-New Big Tech American School

After Babel • 1699 implied HN points • 25 Jun 25
🚌 Education Technology Child development Screen Time Parental involvement Health Effects
  1. Technology in schools is taking away from real interaction and learning. Kids are spending too much time on devices instead of engaging with teachers and classmates.
  2. Digital devices can be distracting and lead to negative behaviors like cheating and addiction. Schools need to focus on true education instead of just using tech for profit.
  3. There’s a growing movement to limit technology in schools. Parents and educators want to create a better environment for kids, focusing on healthy learning without devices.

Curing Ultracrepidarianism

Polymathic Being • 61 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🚌 Education Lifelong learning Critical Thinking Metacognition
  1. People often make confident, authoritative claims outside their knowledge, and when experts do this they can spread serious misinformation by forcing their field's model onto everything else.
  2. Exploring multiple fields isn’t the same as being ultracrepidarian; the difference is approaching new areas with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to learn, unlearn, and reframe ideas.
  3. The cure is not censorship but practicing humility, insatiable curiosity, and intentional reframing so people genuinely expand their expertise before making authoritative pronouncements.

From DEI to DSI: Handling the Neofascist Trumpist Turn to “Discourse Safety Initiatives”

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 169 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25
🚌 Education Higher Ed Academic Freedom University Governance Education & Policy Campus safety
  1. Universities should stick to their core job: protect academic freedom and judge scholarship by merit, while fostering communities where people can speak, listen, think, learn, and support one another.
  2. New waves of weaponized cancel culture and ‘discourse safety’ initiatives risk repurposing campus rules to stifle inquiry, so institutions must resist transactional compacts that trade academic integrity for political favor.
  3. The practical response is to recommit to institutional neutrality: protect nonviolent, non-disruptive protest, prevent violence and major disruptions, avoid policing off-campus political speech, and use clear norms and measured enforcement to preserve open debate and scholarship.

Childhood and Education #10: Behaviors

Don't Worry About the Vase • 1612 implied HN points • 23 Jun 25
🚌 Education Childhood Discipline Mental health Media influence Social Behavior
  1. Many teenagers today feel more anxious than bored, possibly due to smartphones and social media. This shift may affect their mental health in deeper ways.
  2. Kids need time to be bored and explore freely without pressure. Allowing them to do nothing can help spark creativity and self-direction.
  3. Instead of just telling children what not to do, offering them positive alternatives like sports can lead to better outcomes and healthier behaviors.

The Achievement Gap We're Not Talking About

After Babel • 1250 implied HN points • 29 Jul 25
🚌 Education Student Performance Equity Demographics Assessment
  1. Since the mid-2010s, students who are already struggling in school have been falling even further behind their peers. This gap is larger now than it was before.
  2. The gap in achievement is not just between different demographic groups like race or income; it's happening within those groups too. Even among students of the same background, top performers are doing better while others are doing worse.
  3. Technology and changes in education practices might be affecting students differently. Students who find it hard to focus might struggle more with the distractions of technology, widening the achievement gap.