World-Class Schools for All Children

PioneerEducation generates practical ideas that public policy makers, individual schools, and school districts can implement by publishing research that offers constructive recommendations; sponsoring forums supporting school reform; publishing commentary in state and national news outlets; and testifying before the legislature and government agencies on pending education reform issues.

Pioneer’s work is built on the premise that the Commonwealth should uphold its constitutional obligations to all our schoolchildren by increasing academic rigor and ensuring the equality of educational opportunity.

Get Updates on our Education Research!

PIONEER EDUCATION POLICY AREAS

CHARTER SCHOOLS
COMMON CORE

Joy Pullmann on the Fallout from Common Core

Joy Pullmann, executive editor of The Federalist, talks with The Learning Curve about the mediocre NAEP and PISA results, after a decade of the Common Core national education standards and the failed experiment with federal involvement in standards, curricula, and tests. They also discuss social emotional learning, parental involvement, and the media’s coverage of K-12 education policy issues.
US HISTORY
ACADEMIC STANDARDS

New Brief Calls on the USED for School Closure Guidelines During COVID-19

Pioneer calls on the federal government to quickly release a single report identifying which federal laws - and which aspects of those laws - are relevant to the topic of school closure during the COVID pandemic, and providing concrete guidance on how schools can comply in the coming weeks.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
VOC-TECH SCHOOLS

Don’t mess with success of voc-tech high schools

For more than 25 years, Massachusetts vocational-technical high schools have done everything state officials have asked of them. Instead of moving the goal posts by compelling them to switch to a lottery system, we should expand the schools. 
METCO & INTERDISTRICT CHOICE

VIDEO: Making a Difference Through METCO

A new video about the METCO program centers around the friendship between two Wayland High School students; one who lives in Wayland and the other from Boston. It also features interviews with METCO CEO Milly Arbaje-Thomas and Mabel Reid-Wallace, Director of Wayland's METCO program.
HIGHER EDUCATION
ONLINE LEARNING & HOMESCHOOLING
AFTER-SCHOOL & SUMMER ENRICHMENT

MASS ANALYSIS

Find your own facts at MassAnalysis!

Find out what your city or town spends on education, compare it to other Massachusetts cities and towns, or review spending compared to previous  years.

Read More of Our Commentary:

New Brief Calls on the USED for School Closure Guidelines During COVID-19

March 27, 2020/by Editorial Staff

Don’t mess with success of voc-tech high schools

February 25, 2020/by Tom Birmingham

When The Commonwealth Pays The Education Bill, It Should Get A School Committee Say

November 19, 2019/by Jamie Gass

Public Statement on MA DESE Blocking Federal Funding to Religiously Affiliated Special Needs Students

November 6, 2019/by Editorial Staff

Education business ruled by teachers’ unions truly terrifying

October 29, 2019/by Jamie Gass

VIDEO: Making a Difference Through METCO

October 1, 2019/by Editorial Staff

Dimming the state’s literary light

September 27, 2019/by Jamie Gass

Pioneer Institute Files Updated Amicus Brief in Potentially Landmark School Choice Case Currently before U.S. Supreme Court

September 23, 2019/by Editorial Staff

Press Release: Choice Media, Pioneer Institute, and Ricochet Announce New Education Podcast

September 6, 2019/by Editorial Staff

Tackling equity at Boston’s exam schools

August 5, 2019/by Jim Stergios
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Watch our videos on U.S. History, voc-tech education, charter, parochial, voc-tech & other school options!

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VIEW ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Book: The Fight for the Best Charter Schools in the Nation
Film: "Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams: Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws"

Over two decades ago, Massachusetts introduced its first charter public schools, planting seeds that would grow some of the highest performing public schools in the nation. No one could have known then how successful this experiment in education reform would be—nor how controversial. 

The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation draws on data and interviews with education policymakers and school leaders to trace the history of charter schools and document the stellar academic outcomes that they help students achieve. Learn more:

In Massachusetts, the Know-Nothing amendments prevent more than 100,000 urban families with children in chronically underperforming school districts from receiving scholarship vouchers that would allow them access to additional educational alternatives. These legal barriers, also known as Blaine amendments, restrict government funding from flowing to religiously affiliated organizations in nearly 40 states and are a violation of the first and fourteenth amendments.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case this year, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, that could end these amendments. In 2018, Pioneer produced a 30-minute documentary on the impact of the Blaine amendments on families in Massachusetts, Georgia, and Michigan. Watch it now and learn more: