Eric Lerum

“poorer citizens spend a staggering amount on tickets … In the poorest 1% of zip codes that have lottery retailers, the average American adult spends around $600 a year, or nearly 5% of their income, on tickets”

Since parents in Texas will soon be able to choose what they want with ESAs, then we need to free up ISD and charter schools to truly offer innovation. Why force parents to leave established public schools if they want to pursue something innovative? If what parents want is the most important thing, then here is an easy fix: Require parents to opt in to the current state graduation and assessment requirements-the default is they can choose alternate graduation and assessment plans THEY prefer with any ISD willing to offer those plans. Under alternative graduation/assessment plans, parents would be able to choose to participate in sports academies, AI programs, fine arts academies etc. that are offered by any willing ISD. Such programs could compress "traditional learning" during the day and then offer specialties for the larger remaining part of the day If the only schools free to completely innovate under ESAs are going to be the schools not managed by the state legislature and state education agency, then we are missing a big opportunity to provide parents what they want from a larger group of willing partners. Unshackle willing ISDs and charters and truly let them compete if they want to do so. ISDs have the best facilities for school, fine arts, and sports so allow them to run specialty programs and give kids the best experiences.

From Ezra Klein, more true than ever. You would not believe how many shortcuts everyone else is taking. In many areas, you can get way ahead of everyone just by doing the work. More true than ever now, when more people are shirking and AI lets you do 10x if you try. 1/

This is a really astonishing claim: Students in Mississippi & Louisiana score higher on reading tests than students in California & New York despite spending way less money per pupil and having higher child poverty rates. Decided to double check the data because, if true, this should be alarming for blue state leaders. And yup, it checks out. Reading performance (NAEP 2024, Grade 4 reading, average scale score): Mississippi: 219 Louisiana: 216 New York: 215 California: 212 Child poverty (SAIPE; “estimated percent of people age 0–17 in poverty,” 2023): Louisiana: 25.2% Mississippi: 24.3% New York: 18.6% California: 15.0% Per-pupil spending (public K–12 “current expenditures per pupil,” FY2023, inflation-adjusted to FY2023 dollars) New York: $29,588 California: $18,568 Louisiana: $14,822 Mississippi: $12,238 It should be unacceptable to spend that much more taxpayer money while delivering worse results for students.