New Study Shows Dangers and Ineffectiveness of “Social-Emotional Learning”

The Pioneer Institute, a national leader in the fight against Common Core and other horrible corporatist and global education reform ideas, today released a new study titled “Social-Emotional Learning: K–12 Education as New Age Nanny State.” The study — which I was honored to co-author with attorney and researcher Jane Robbins and Dr. Kevin Ryan, a professor emeritus of Boston University, who wrote the foreword — came to many important conclusions. Here are some of them highlighted in Pioneer’s press release and video:  Proponents of SEL call for focusing less on academic content and knowledge in schools, and more

New Report Reveals the Twin Dangers of Common Core and School Choice

A thorough new white paper from the Pioneer Institute titled “Common Core, School Choice and Rethinking Standards-Based Reform” expertly discusses the mountain of evidence showing the flaws and failures of the Common Core standards and their aligned curriculum, as well as how damaging the centralized standards reform movement is to school choice. The report is authored by Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom; Theodor Rebarber, head of the nonprofit AccountabilityWorks; and Patrick J. Wolf, Distinguished Professor of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. With regard to the quality and success of the Common Core standards,

Education Expert: Mass. Schools Replacing History with “Progressive Propaganda”

In a white paper released today by the Pioneer Institute in Boston, entitled “No Longer a City on a Hill: Massachusetts Degrades its K-12 History Standards”, education policy experts outline a strong case against the 2018 rewrite of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework. The paper examines the politicized, progressive bent of the proposed changes and argues that the curriculum rewrite “eviscerates” the standards for history education previously used by the state, which were widely acknowledged as among the best in the nation. “It’s truly a travesty to see the loss of curriculum standards that helped catapult Massachusetts