The hottest Education & Policy Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Climate & Environment Topics

No, That's Not What "the Research" Says About Exam Schools

Freddie deBoer • 3960 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Studies using cutoffs and regression-discontinuity designs show that attending selective exam schools does not meaningfully boost test scores, college enrollment, or later earnings once you account for students' pre-entry ability.
  2. The schools' strong reputations come mainly from selecting already high-ability students, so student traits and background drive outcomes more than the school itself, and claims about lasting harm to bright kids stuck in regular classes lack solid support.
  3. That null effect matters for policy: trying to scale elite-school practices often fails, widening access to those schools may not change long-term results, and standardized tests can sometimes help talented disadvantaged students stand out.

Examination Systems

David Friedman’s Substack • 350 implied HN points • 14 Mar 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Imperial China chose most officials through brutally competitive exams that tested knowledge of Confucian texts, poetic forms, and essay styles rather than practical administrative skills.
  2. Those exams probably served as a form of indoctrination, instilling Confucian duties and loyalty in elites and spreading those beliefs widely since many people studied even if few passed.
  3. Modern college degrees work similarly by requiring years of study in subjects often unrelated to specific jobs, so degrees can function as signals or ways of inculcating habits and values rather than just teaching directly useful skills.

Homeschooling Isn’t for Everyone

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1210 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Taking children out of school can put their education at real risk, creating gaps in basic knowledge and skills.
  2. When parents use extreme or unconventional methods, homeschooling can lead to physical, emotional, or developmental harm for the child.
  3. Homeschooling is often associated with isolation, undereducation, and cultlike family dynamics, so it isn’t the right fit for every family or child.

Good letters made good men. Why should we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses?

The Common Reader • 2657 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
📚 Literature Education & Policy
  1. Art and literature don’t need extra practical reasons to exist; they transmit tacit, experience-based knowledge you grasp by doing and feeling rather than by argument alone.
  2. Great writing and imaginative art build internally believable ‘little worlds’ that help you see and understand the bigger world, so good fiction isn’t mere escapism but a way of knowing.
  3. The humanities matter because they train language, rhetoric, and a sense of greatness; trying to reduce them to metrics or purely instrumental value misses their point and risks damaging what they do.

Endangerment Finding, bird flu, what counts as professional degrees, and more

Your Local Epidemiologist • 1029 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🏥 Health Politics Education & Policy
  1. A proposed Education Department rule would narrow which graduate programs count as “professional,” risking lower federal loan limits for public health, nursing, social work, physician assistant, and similar students and making these careers harder to afford.
  2. Repealing the Endangerment Finding weakens the EPA’s legal authority to limit greenhouse gases, which will likely increase air pollution and related health harms like asthma, heart and lung disease, and premature deaths, even as courts and states push back.
  3. A major H5N1 bird flu outbreak has infected millions of birds (mostly in commercial flocks), so the virus is circulating in poultry and wild birds; the risk to most people remains low, but poultry owners should follow testing and biosecurity guidance.
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Pending Change in Higher Ed

In My Tribe • 470 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Parents are moving away from public K–12 toward private schools and homeschooling, which expands the pool of families willing to try alternative higher-education models like UATX.
  2. UATX expects a fast surge in enrollment that could quickly change campus culture and shows how new providers can exploit demographic and recruitment problems facing legacy universities.
  3. Colleges now face a governance choice about how much to embrace AI; going all in will reshape hiring, curriculum, and budgets but risks alienating faculty, while hesitating risks becoming irrelevant.

No More Gifted Students in Mamdani’s New York City

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1400 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. The new mayor plans to phase out the city’s gifted and talented kindergarten program, affecting roughly 18,000 current G&T students and about 2,500 new admits each year.
  2. Many parents and advocates warn that abolishing G&T would hurt high-achieving kids who need advanced academic support and runs counter to what families want.
  3. Critics frame the move as part of a broader progressive shift that challenges merit-based programs and point to other recent policy decisions they say have had harmful consequences.

Virginia shows how it's done

Of Boys and Men • 123 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Virginia has created a first‑of‑its‑kind, bipartisan Boys and Men Advisory Commission that passed the legislature with overwhelming support.
  2. The 18‑member commission will sit in the legislature, focus on education, health, economic opportunity, family life, and social media, has a small annual budget, and a three‑year sunset to prove its value.
  3. The effort is explicitly framed as non‑partisan and meant to complement, not compete with, support for women and girls, offering a potential model for other states.

Education Links, 2/18/2026

In My Tribe • 227 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Blurring high school, college, and career can give students real work experience, college courses, and employer-valued credentials before they graduate, making schooling more directly relevant to careers.
  2. Using metrics like cost per graduate or return on investment lets policymakers compare programs and see which models produce more graduates for the money, guiding funding and design decisions.
  3. Dollar-focused metrics miss important non-monetary benefits—like lifelong enrichment from arts—and overlook the value of creativity and combining skills, so education should also cultivate personal growth and skill-stacking.

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 Education & Policy
  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 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.

Education Links, 1/30/2026

In My Tribe • 334 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  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.

Tyler Cowen's AI Campus

In My Tribe • 531 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🚌 Education 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.

The Lockdown Disaster: Massive European Study Vindicates Sweden’s Common-Sense Pandemic Response

Unmasked • 62 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🏥 Health Politics Education & Policy
  1. Lockdowns were a disastrous, expert-driven policy rooted in flawed reports and a break from established pandemic plans, and they caused widespread harm.
  2. A major European study supports Sweden’s less-restrictive approach, suggesting heavy-handed measures like lockdowns and prolonged mandates did not deliver the expected public health benefits.
  3. Policies such as mask mandates, vaccine passports, and school closures have had long-term social consequences, yet there has been little sustained effort to fully evaluate whether those measures were truly effective.

Education Links, 1/25/2026

In My Tribe • 273 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
🚌 Education 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.

The perils of Totulism

Wrong Side of History • 446 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
🌍 World Politics Education & Policy
  1. Children have long been used by political movements and authoritarian regimes as symbols and recruits, from Revolutionary France to Mao’s Red Guards.
  2. Today a trend called 'totulism' sees schools, charities and politicians showcasing or recruiting children for causes like climate protests, immigration and welfare, breaking the old taboo against using kids in politics.
  3. This is worrying and often manipulative because children can be coached or used as props rather than expressing independent views, which is ethically problematic and potentially harmful.

How A Career Politician Not Up To the Task Stole My 529 Money

Points And Figures • 639 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Political leaders who lack financial experience can make decisions to boost appearances instead of protecting savers, leading to mismanagement of public investment programs.
  2. Investment options labeled as conservative, like some 529 funds, can still suffer huge losses when managers take risky bets or violate guidelines.
  3. Poor oversight and risky choices can wipe out college savings, so transparency, proper diversification, and stronger supervision are essential.

Strong Public Support To Restrict Social Media for Children in Germany

After Babel • 625 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. A large majority of adults favor a minimum social media age of 16, and many adolescents—especially 16–17 year olds—also support restricting younger teens despite near-universal daily use.
  2. Both adults and teenagers report strong concerns that social media harms young people’s mental and physical health, attention, and school performance, while only information gathering is seen as a clear benefit.
  3. Adults are much more negative about social media overall than adolescents and many would prefer a world without it, implying that policies like a 16+ age minimum would have broad public support.

The Double Life of America’s Elite

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 3428 implied HN points • 29 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. A stable family is super important for a child's success in life. Many people focus on things like money or education but forget that having two married parents makes a big difference.
  2. Higher classes often have beliefs that don't match what they actually live by. These 'luxury beliefs' can harm people who come from tougher backgrounds, like the idea that marriage isn't important.
  3. Ideas from elites, like pushing for new family structures, can negatively impact kids who don't see stable families around them. It's important for those who influence society to consider how their beliefs affect everyone.

Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 6654 implied HN points • 06 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. The Department of Education has spent over $1 trillion since it started, but student performance gaps have only worsened. This shows that the department isn't fixing the issues it was made to address.
  2. Most students are falling behind, with many fourth graders struggling to read and do basic math. The scores for the lowest performing students are the worst they've ever been.
  3. The Department of Education mainly acts as a middleman that complicates funding without improving education. It doesn't run schools or employ teachers, so some believe it should be shut down.

Grants to Combat School Violence Redirected to Defray Costs of Illegal Immigration

OpenTheBooks Substack • 194 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Some federal school-violence grants are being used to pay for services for immigrant and English-language-learner students instead of just physical security upgrades.
  2. School districts report that recent influxes of migrant families have strained resources and coincided with higher juvenile arrests and disciplinary issues, so they’re hiring counselors, translators, and running cultural-competency programs.
  3. Critics argue this diverts money from the program’s original goal of funding locks, alarms, and proven safety measures, noting about $13.5 million across 15 grants explicitly serve foreign students.

the low identity agitariat is the true enemy of liberty

bad cattitude • 241 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Many activists build their identity around slogans and group membership instead of their own beliefs, so they react emotionally and reject facts that threaten that identity.
  2. That externalized identity creates cult-like, collectivist dynamics that resist reason, justify harmful actions, and are easier to exploit through education and social systems.
  3. The way forward is to dismantle the institutions and practices that reinforce identity-based groupthink and rebuild schools and civic institutions that promote individual thinking, personal responsibility, and liberty.

Rahm on Trump and China: “He is the worst negotiator.”

ChinaTalk • 340 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. The current U.S. approach and the president's unpredictability have weakened alliances and encouraged partners like Japan and South Korea to spend more on defense as insurance, which ultimately plays into China’s strategic narrative.
  2. Blending public policy with family business interests and rolling back oversight has eroded institutional norms, damaged U.S. credibility, and reduced America’s bargaining power abroad.
  3. China now behaves like a strategic adversary rather than a normal competitor, so the U.S. needs a whole-of-country response: protect research and universities, invest in energy and industrial capacity, and run a massive workforce and education push while managing AI’s inequality risks.

School Shootings Rise Along with ADHD Diagnoses, While Public Officials Continue to Ignore Mental Health Treatment

The DisInformation Chronicle • 290 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
🏥 Health Politics Education & Policy
  1. School shootings and student exposure to gun violence have increased, and schools often respond with security tech like metal detectors instead of tackling underlying issues.
  2. Many children are being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD at high rates, and stimulant medications can sometimes increase aggression or trigger a cascade of more drugs to treat side effects.
  3. What’s missing are real behavioral and mental-health interventions and accountability for educators and clinicians who neglect non-drug treatments or mismanage diagnoses.

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 Education & Policy
  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.

Politics is Full of Bad People Who Do Good Things

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 4779 implied HN points • 11 Nov 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Sometimes, people who support bad ideas can still create good outcomes. It's important to recognize that even if someone has questionable morals, their actions can still benefit society.
  2. In politics, it can be necessary to form alliances with those we don't agree with. Supporting a cause we believe in might require working with people whose values we find unappealing.
  3. Political strategies often need to adapt to reality. It's crucial to prioritize practical wins for individual freedoms, even if it means partnering with groups that don't fully align with our principles.

A roundup of some things from New Zealand, across the ditch - i.e. Australia - and the UK.

A B’Old Woman • 559 implied HN points • 29 Apr 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. In New Zealand, there's been a big fuss about the Midwifery Council's new guidelines that ignored the words 'woman' and 'baby'. People are pushing back and filing complaints to get the guidelines changed.
  2. A group called 'Let Kids be Kids' is traveling around New Zealand to share concerns about inappropriate content in school relationships education. They are facing backlash but continue to raise awareness about their views.
  3. In the UK, the National Health Service is dropping inclusive language like 'chestfeeding' and stopping their rainbow badge program. Changes like these are being noticed in New Zealand, showing a wider conversation about gender issues.

Chartbook 349 Scholasticides

Chartbook • 2846 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Cultural genocide is often part of larger genocidal plans. To erase a culture, you have to destroy its education and learning systems.
  2. Scholasticide, which targets educational institutions, can both support genocide and stand alone as an attack on a society's future.
  3. In conflicts like those in Gaza and Sudan, education systems face extreme challenges. The destruction in Gaza is unmatched, impacting universities and severing communication for students and educators.

Keys to understanding: Video Q&A

The Bell Ringer • 179 implied HN points • 12 Jul 24
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. Teaching methods can vary greatly, and it's important to recognize these differences to improve learning experiences.
  2. Understanding the reasons behind different teaching styles can help educators connect better with their students.
  3. By exploring teaching fundamentals, both teachers and students can enhance their interactions and overall educational outcomes.

Academia’s most notorious thought criminals unite to discuss controversial topics

Heterodox STEM • 192 implied HN points • 04 Dec 25
🚌 Education Education & Policy
  1. A group of academics urged open, uncensored debate on taboo or controversial topics, arguing that free discussion is needed to challenge prevailing campus norms.
  2. They criticized a strong egalitarian and cultural-relativist mindset, saying it can block honest inquiry about human differences and raise real concerns about cultural compatibility and assimilation.
  3. Universities were described as facing a crisis of protests, weak leadership, and mission drift, prompting debate over whether outside pressure or government leverage is necessary despite potential harms to international students and STEM.

What to Learn From China.

Breaking the News • 1051 implied HN points • 08 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. China's history shows how important international students are for higher education. The U.S. benefits greatly from the brilliant students who come from China and other countries.
  2. Long-term planning in industrial policy can lead to success. China effectively uses consistent strategies to boost its economy, while chaotic policies in the U.S. might not work as well.
  3. Understanding China's past troubles helps provide context for current issues. The Cultural Revolution was a dark time, and it's important to learn about such events to avoid repeating mistakes.

Columbia Is Still Discriminating

Cremieux Recueil • 791 implied HN points • 24 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Columbia University is still not following the law regarding admissions, as they continue to use race in a way that seems discriminatory against Asian and White students.
  2. Test-optional policies allow schools to hide the truth about their admissions practices, making it harder to spot any biases or discrimination.
  3. Reforming the data collection system for college admissions will help expose unfair practices and ensure that schools are held accountable for their actions.

The Damage Caused From COVID Policies Is Utterly Jaw Dropping

Unmasked • 62 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🏥 Health Politics Education & Policy
  1. Lockdowns and many other COVID policies were implemented without solid evidence they would reduce transmission, yet they were used widely.
  2. Officials largely ignored or failed to study the likely harms, causing major social, economic, and mental-health damage that still lingers.
  3. Many interventions, such as school closures and business restrictions, lacked rigorous trials so their benefits are unclear. This shows we need evidence-driven policies that consider harms as well as benefits.

(Some Of) Your July 2025 Questions, Answered

Singal-Minded • 486 implied HN points • 05 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. There are ongoing discussions about whether Congress should question health experts on youth gender medicine. Some believe these experts owe the public clear explanations, especially since government funding is involved.
  2. Celebrating Pride in schools is debated due to differing parental comfort levels with LGBTQ+ materials for young children. Finding the right balance between inclusivity and respect for diverse beliefs is challenging.
  3. Research on brain differences between transgender and cisgender individuals is complex. Understanding these differences doesn't necessarily answer how society should treat trans people, as each individual's experience can vary greatly.

We Must Return to the Classical Black American Tradition

Journal of Free Black Thought • 39 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. A post–civil rights ideological shift toward neo-Marxist and socialist-influenced, state-managed solutions prioritized social engineering over community-building, which encouraged dependency and weakened families, churches, and local order.
  2. Progressive, technocratic city governance and a permanent political class have managed chronic poverty while elites opt out with private schooling, leaving public schools to focus more on ideology than on basic literacy and vocational skills, which deepens stagnation.
  3. The proposed remedy is a return to the classical Black American tradition—combining traditional Christian ethics with free-market enterprise and Booker T. Washington’s emphasis on economic self-reliance and moral development—to restore dignity, stability, and prosperity.

Christchurch Library and the secret it keeps from parents and the community.

A B’Old Woman • 839 implied HN points • 22 Oct 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. A program called 'Rainbow Drop-In' at Christchurch Library is not well advertised, making it hard for parents to find information.
  2. This program is run by an outside group called InsideOUT, which doesn’t provide clear information or communication to parents.
  3. There are concerns about the program's safety and transparency, especially regarding the involvement of vulnerable youth without parental consent.

Thoughts of Chairman Mao on GenZ

Life Since the Baby Boom • 1383 implied HN points • 06 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. Many younger people today have a lot of education but lack real-world experience. This can lead to confusing ideas about life and work.
  2. There’s a suggestion that younger generations should engage in hands-on jobs or military service to gain practical skills and understanding.
  3. The older generations could help by admitting mistakes in how they educated younger people and offer real job training to help reduce issues like student debt.

🏫 A DARPA for education

Faster, Please! • 1370 implied HN points • 13 Nov 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Education & Policy
  1. The U.S. Department of Education may need significant changes, focusing more on innovation and effective solutions rather than just maintaining the status quo. A proposed model inspired by DARPA could help create practical educational tools and practices.
  2. Shifting key functions of the Department of Education, like student aid and education research, to other agencies could improve efficiency. This would allow states to have more control over their education systems and tailor solutions to their specific needs.
  3. Using advancements in technology, especially artificial intelligence, could revolutionize education. A dedicated research organization for education could lead to important developments that enhance learning and address gaps created by recent challenges, like the pandemic.