National Association of Scholars

NAS is proud to announce The Cather Standards, a new model for K-12 English Language Arts. American literacy has been in freefall for too long. NAEP scores have reached historic lows, with 4th-grade reading down in 48 of 50 U.S. states. It is time to replace the failed Common Core experiment.

NAS President Peter Wood weighs in on the reported decline of DEI in academia. While hiring requirements have dropped, Wood warns of a complicated game where universities simply rebrand DEI offices to avoid political headwinds: washingtonstand.com/article/new-re…

Read @J_Gould's latest: mindingthecampus.org/2026/04/30/13-…

"Earlier deaths include scientists from NASA’s JPL, including Michael David Hicks and Frank Maiwald. In both cases, details surrounding the cause of death remain limited in public reporting."

Read the full piece on the @AmRevolution250 Substack:amrev250.substack.com/p/then-you-nee…

"The May 4 Act is what the State itself more accurately describes as a “renunciation of allegiance.” The Act makes its renunciation in a rather roundabout manner. In its first line, it announces that it is repealing an Act, titled “An Act for the effectual securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” That earlier law—from 1756— allowed the Governor to require that any officeholder suspected of “disaffection” swear a loyalty oath to the King. It was an anti-Catholic measure, antithetical to the Colony’s tolerant temper, and it seems to have never been enforced. This dead letter is what the 1776 Act formally overturns, which would make it a negation of a nullity. But this legal legerdemain does not capture its true meaning."

Texas A&M now allows 20% AI use in "writing intensive" courses. @J_Gould_ notes that students use AI as a substitute, not a supplement, eroding the work of thinking. Read more on the decline of academic standards: thecollegefix.com/texas-am-writi…

NAS External Affairs Coordinator Suzannah Alexander exposes how interstate licensing compacts are becoming "shadow governments," using professional standards to mandate ideological compliance and social justice activism. Read more: thefederalist.com/2026/04/29/how…

Micro-colleges are disrupting higher ed. Matthew J. Smith of @ReligPolitics highlights how these startups are answering the demand for mission-driven education in an era of ideological homogeneity: arcmag.org/the-quiet-surg…

Watch the full episode hosted by Ian Oxnevad & @macrotermiteman: youtube.com/watch?v=gv8WZG…

"The laws of nature had to predate nature to create nature." Professor Gerald Schroeder on the necessity of a creator as he joins the "One Universe, Two Books" podcast.

Peter Wood on the SPLC's normalization of deplatforming:mindingthecampus.org/2026/04/29/how…

Certainly, SPLC has not been alone in preaching the doctrine of de-platforming alternative views. But it is hard to find any source as authoritative and popular.

Peter Wood on Yale's steep decline in public trust:mindingthecampus.org/2026/04/30/im-…

The great decline in “trust” occurred before artificial intelligence entered the picture, but it will surely shave off a few more percentage points as 17-year-olds realize that many of the jobs they might once have aspired to will simply disappear by the time they graduate.

Yale’s new report suggests shrinking the university's mission back to the dissemination of knowledge. Read @mroth78's take on the matter: archive.md/mcEl2

Hyper-accelerated online degrees are sounding alarms. When a bachelor’s degree takes only eight weeks, what remains of the virtues of higher education? washingtonpost.com/education/2026…

Groundbreaking Scholarship! Ever felt the urge to dismantle the university while simultaneously cashing its tuition checks? Welcome to the world of "fugitive praxes," where mixtape tracks replace actual research to escape the carceral trauma of grading papers and taking attendance. "I used BlackCrit also to contextualize how I, as a Black graduate student and teaching assistant, remain unassimilable to the ‘neoliberal-multicultural imagination’ of academia." Don't worry, the abolition doesn't apply to the author’s own PhD.

Suzannah Alexander’s investigation into the ideological capture of mental health professions highlights the exact curriculum corruption we monitor. From DEI accreditation to classroom shaming, this is a vital case study in academic reform:unbekoming.substack.com/p/interview-wi…

Instead of returning to truth-seeking, elite academics are calling for a "NATO" for universities to entrench political activism. This rejection of institutional neutrality shows exactly why higher ed reform is so urgent. insidehighered.com/news/governmen…

Read Claire Harrington's latest:mindingthecampus.org/2026/04/29/uvu…

Readers can decide where they stand on this episode. What is clearer is how it fits within a broader pattern this commencement season. As National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood notes, universities appear increasingly attuned to the risks of backlash, shaping decisions in anticipation of controversy.