education

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.

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.

National SAT scores have dropped to their lowest levels in years, and Massachusetts has also faced a moderate decline in scores. With fewer students in Massachusetts opting to take standardized tests, data from US Data Labs illustrates a complicated picture of academic performance and recovery in the state. 

The Massachusetts Senate proposed making community college tuition free for all residents of the Commonwealth as part of its FY2025 budget. Pioneer explores whether this program is what Massachusetts needs to prepare its residents for gainful employment and how it interacts with the state's extensive workforce development infrastructure.

  Massachusetts’ education system is famously excellent, routinely ranking at the top of the nation. Even in Massachusetts, however, some public school districts such as Brookline, Newton, Wellesley, and Weston consistently perform better than others and post higher standardized test scores.  In...

Pioneer Institute is today releasing Restoring the City on a Hill: U.S. History and Civics in America's Schools, which details the decline of history and civics knowledge among students and offers a plan for how states and local school districts can foster understanding of and curiosity about our nation's history.

When asked a series of questions about how the federal government works that are based on the U.S. citizenship test, Massachusetts residents answered on average 63 percent of them correctly, earning a collective grade of “D” in a poll commissioned by Pioneer Institute and conducted by Emerson College Polling. The result is just over the 60 percent score required to pass the actual citizenship test.

States and school districts should look to innovations like endowing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) chairs in high schools to address a growing K-12 teacher shortage, according to a new white paper published by Pioneer Institute.

Progressives and conservatives have sponsored politically influenced alterations to history curricula across the country. Recovering trust in history education is an imperative, and teachers and educators can help by making students aware that the facts of history are themselves political, constantly manipulated to advance parties’ and politicians’ own interests. Curricular standards that offer this guidance would weaken biased assaults from either ideological side.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that racial discrimination in college admissions is unconstitutional, Harvard and other elite colleges and universities have adopted new essay prompts that openly invite applicants to air identity-based grievances in hopes of aiding their admissions chances.