World-Class Schools for All Children

PioneerEducation generates practical ideas that public policymakers, 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.

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THE LEARNING CURVE EDUCATION PODCAST

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TUNE IN: Wednesdays at 12 pm

The Learning Curve is where you’ll find straight talk about the nation’s hottest education stories—news and opinion from the schoolyard to the campaign trail. Our hosts and guests serve up provocative commentary and interview school leaders, innovators, bestselling authors, policymakers and more. Listeners can find “The Learning Curve” on iTunes (Apple Podcasts), Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and the Choice Media mobile app. They can also find it online at Ricochet and Pioneer Institute.

RECENT EPISODES

PIONEER EDUCATION POLICY AREAS

U.S. HISTORY

Pioneer’s U.S. History & Civics Book with Chris Sinacola

Chris Sinacola discusses Pioneer’s new book “Restoring the City on a Hill: U.S. History & Civics in America’s Schools” based on U.S. K-12 history and civics education, highlighting declining standards, leadership importance, crisis, primary sources, and state profiles, underscoring academic content’s value.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Pioneer Institute Files Amicus Curiae Brief in U.S. Supreme Court School Choice Case

Pioneer Institute has filed an amicus curiae brief in Carson v. Makin urging the Supreme Court of the United States to strike down a provision of Maine law. The Court will hear oral arguments in Carson this morning (December 8) at 10 am. The Maine law being challenged allows districts that don’t have their own schools to contract with a school or pay for students that choose to attend public or private schools, but explicitly excludes religious schools.

VOC-TECH SCHOOLS

Admissions lotteries would harm vocational-technical schools

Expanding the number of seats available in vocational-technical high schools is a good investment for Massachusetts. But it’s critical they are expanded in a way that promotes equity without endangering the academic and occupational excellence that continues to drive burgeoning demand for these schools.

ACADEMIC STANDARDS

Truth on Trial: Relativism in the Classroom

As Steven Wilson argues in his new book, The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, “central to a liberal education is the pursuit of truth, however elusive.” Indeed, the quest for truth, and knowledge of it, is enshrined in the slogans of most universities, including my own—the University of Chicago—as a reminder of our purpose. It seems absurd to suggest otherwise, to propose educating students in anything but rationality, logic, and ultimately, truth; but absurdity has taken hold in education.

CHARTER SCHOOLS
COMMON CORE

A Decade of Doubt

By failing to believe in students’ capabilities, and to set standards accordingly, we have condemned many to illiteracy and generally dire educational outcomes—in sum, incapability. 
This need not be the case, and for a brief moment, in Massachusetts and other educational hotspots, it wasn’t.

METCO & INTERDISTRICT CHOICE
HIGHER EDUCATION

University Presidents Salary Comparison, Pt. 2

See how Massachusetts state schools’ presidential salaries match up. Presidents with schools who have less than a 1,000 student enrollment are near the top of the list.

ONLINE LEARNING & HOMESCHOOLING

Study Urges Massachusetts to Embrace Innovative School Models

A new policy brief from Pioneer Institute urges Massachusetts policymakers to encourage the proliferation and progress of non-traditional models that offer families creative, flexible, personalized and low-cost private education options.

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:

Study Finds Trump’s Most Favored Nation Drug Proposal Could Still Raise Out-of-Pocket Costs Without PBM Reform

June 25, 2025/by Editorial Staff

Study Recommends Easing Barriers to Innovative Learning Models

June 17, 2025/by Editorial Staff

GO Tutor Corps’ Michael Duffy on Charter Public Schools & High-Dosage Tutoring

May 21, 2025/by Editorial Staff

Pioneer Institute Releases Toolkit to Transform Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School

May 15, 2025/by Editorial Staff

Pioneer Institute Releases 2025 Toolkit to Guide Policymakers on Education Tax-Credit Scholarship Programs

April 29, 2025/by Editorial Staff

We Have a Long Way to Go for Massachusetts Residents to Have the Government Transparency We Deserve

March 20, 2025/by Editorial Staff

The Lost Decade Calls for Replacing “Social Justice Education” with Education Rich in Liberal Arts, includes a foreword by John McWhorter

March 12, 2025/by Editorial Staff

Curious Mike’s Visit to Rain Lily Microschool

February 13, 2025/by Editorial Staff

Study Published by Pioneer Institute Shows Massachusetts Learning Loss Among Nation’s Worst

October 24, 2024/by Editorial Staff

Pioneer Institute Study Finds MCAS, Education Reform Have Significantly Improved Academic Attainment

October 16, 2024/by Editorial Staff
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Watch our videos on U.S. History, voc-tech education, charter, parochial, voc-tech & other school options!

As a small non-profit, we depend on the generous support of individuals like you to fund our important research and programs.

Make a tax-deductible gift below to support our campaign to expand access to high-quality academic options.

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. 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:

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