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

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), StitcherSpotifyGoogle Play, and the Choice Media mobile app. They can also find it online at Ricochet and Pioneer Institute.

PIONEER EDUCATION POLICY AREAS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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