Last month I had the opportunity to present a new paper at the PEPG conference "School Choice: Tradeoffs and Evidence-Based Policy Making" — analyzing more than a decade of public opinion data on ESAs, school vouchers, and charter schools. I also focus on subgroup trends and question framing/wording effects in our monthly and annual national surveys. Thanks to @Paul_E_Peterson, @MichaelTHartney, and the @edchoice team for their support throughout. @EducationNext @TaubmanCenter It was great learning from a lot of the other presenters and speakers. I definitely enjoyed it.

NAEP Long Term Trend Reading Age 9 Performance Levels, 1971-2025

New NAEP results are out and it’s clear the bottom has fallen out for our lowest performing math students: The bottom 10% of students performed worse than any cohort of students on the history of the test going all the way back to the 1970s

Dinner from Buc-ee’s at 1am😋

DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION😭😭😭

Compared to the first #NAEP long-term trend assessments in the 1970s: Reading and math scores were higher in 2025 for 9-year-olds, and the math score was higher for 13-year-olds. The 2025 reading score for 13-year-olds was not significantly different from the score in 1971.

Now Available: The #NAEP 2025 math and reading long-term trend results for 9- and 13-year-old students. Reading & math scores were higher for 9-year-olds in 2025 than in 2022. For 13-year-olds, there was no significant change in scores from 2023 to 2022.

The Long-Term Trend Assessment (LTT) has measured student learning since the 1970s. How are 9- and 13-year-olds doing in math and reading? Are today’s students reading for fun more or less than before? Are more students taking algebra than earlier generations?

There's a third factor: Rising benefits, even after adjusting for inflation. In 1990, a 2-earner middle-income couple received about $44,000 in annual benefits. In 2026, a middle-income couple gets $60,000. By 2050, $86,000. /2

On the day Social Security's Trustees Report is released, it's worth puncturing some conventional wisdom: that Social Security's financial troubles are due only to changing demographics, in particular low birth rates and rising life spans. That's not the whole story. /1

Gordon Wood, great historian of the American Founding and Revolution, passed away yesterday, apparently killed by passing car. His work was pathbreaking and vital antidote to both left and right-wing fallacies about the Founding. I posted an obituary here: reason.com/volokh/2026/06/08…

Today in 1973, the greatest horse race in history was run. Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths to become the Triple Crown winner and set a world record time that has never been beaten! 🎥: CBS Broadcast

That tracks with our working paper on the factors that predict higher enrollment in private school choice programs. A state's public school bullying rate is the strongest and most consistent predictor of higher enrollments. @mistygallo2 @colynritter24 edchoice.org/research/if-you…

Fascinating polling results from @edchoice show that the top reason parents change their child's school is bullying. #SchoolChoice @colynritter24 @pauldiperna @alexanderrusso @KevinMahnken edchoice.org/2026-parents-di…

All NAEP surveys show homework falling over last 2 decades. This from 8th grade math teacher survey. Note: As with all NAEP data (even tchr/princ surveys) percentages expressed as percentage of students.

Mourning the death of Gordon Wood, our greatest American historian. Gordon chaired the Distinguished Scholars Advisory Board at the opening of @ConstitutionCtr in 2004 and was a generous friend, advisor, and inspiring role model ever since. Combing intellectual, political, and constitutional history, he transformed our understanding of the Radicalism of the American Revolution and the Creation of the American Republic. Thanks to an extraordinary teacher, scholar, and champion of the liberal arts for inspiring so many of us to love history, the Constitution, and the American Idea. reason.com/volokh/2026/06/08… via @reason

I never met Gordon Wood, but I have a story about him. In one of my grad school seminars, we read Wood’s Creation of the American Republic. The sheer erudition and evidentiary depth of the book bowled me over. Back then, before kids and before life accelerated to warp speed, I used to call my mother every Sunday to catch up. Lots of times, we ended up talking about what I was reading that week in my grad seminars or for leisure. Mom had an omnivorous mind, and she was always looking for something else to read. She was a true intellectual—curious about almost everything, always eager to integrate new arguments or ideas into her existing schemas of how the world worked or to have those schemas challenged and changed. When we talked that particular Sunday, I think I tried to describe to her part of Wood’s argument about the relationship between the state constitutions during the Articles of Confederation era and the federal Constitution. Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn’t completely understand her questions, but the end result of the conversation was that Mom had questions about Wood’s argument that I didn’t answer satisfactorily. I told her that she should probably just read the book, and we said goodbye. She did eventually read the book, but the next Sunday, Mom started our conversation by saying, “Well, I had a lovely conversation with Gordon Wood this week.” For a split second, I thought she was joking, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. I started to sweat. “How?” I asked. A whole variety of unlikely scenarios in which the foremost historian of the American Revolution and my mother, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, might have met ran through my mind. “Oh, I just looked up his office phone number on Brown’s website and called, and he picked up!” Mom said. I decided I would have to find another profession. As it ended up, Gordon Wood spent about an hour on the phone with my mother answering her questions about the Constitution. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot for the man when I imagine him picking up the phone in Providence and finding Becky Elder from Wichita on the other end of the line. His generosity in that moment spoke very well of him. Rest in peace, professor.

My tribute to Gordon Wood, the great historian of Founding-era America, is live on @WSJopinion. Will be in tomorrow's print edition:

Interested in taking on the most exciting education job in the country? Come be the founding Executive Director of the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation and remake public education in Indianapolis... and eventually America. governmentjobs.com/careers/i…

A great summary of the @edchoice summary of recent developments in #schoolchoice across the US. New states are joining the FTCS program so fast it's hard to keep up (I'm looking at you NC)! @RobertEnlow @MQ_McShane @AlexanderWolf6 @colynritter24 @pauldiperna zeale.co/news/articles/how-i…

Here are the slides and recording from our recent webinar on Ed Freedom Tax Credit Scholarships edunomicslab.org/webinars/