Joy Pullmann is an education policy writer and editor at The Federalist. She contributed to The Weekly Standard in 2011 and 2012, covering federal education policy, school choice, homeschooling regulation, and critiques of the Obama administration's approach to education, including No Child Left Behind waivers and Race to the Top.
A strongly-worded statement from Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week revealed his distaste for federalism, since it undermines his goal of having all states agree to one set of education standards.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education issued first-year progress reports for 12 states that received $4 billion in federal funds through an Obama administration pet project, Race to the Top. Not one had followed through on the promises they’d made to secure these grants. For three states—New…
President Obama announced today his plans to again unilaterally change federal education policy as part of a new “We can’t wait” campaign, charging Congress with “obstructing” his plans to reshape education and the federal budget.
The president has decided to take a tack on the largest federal education law he certainly wishes were available in budget battles: bypassing Congress and legislating through administrative agencies by offering states waivers in exchange for education policies he favors.
The Newark Star-Ledger recently published a lengthy article portraying the state’s “unregulated” homeschoolers as wide-eyed fringers, not on the opinions page but as straight-facts reporting. When I emailed the editor to protest, he replied (and later courteously gave me permission to quote): “We…
Test cheating has for years provided ammunition for critics of public school accountability, and the latest out of Atlanta on the country's apparently largest test-cooking scandal to date only amplifies their crows. As Mark mentioned earlier, that's the quick conclusion even "objective" reporters…
Despite the Wisconsin political circus of late, state Republicans have expanded the oldest voucher program in the nation within a much-needed deficit-cutting budget. Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the bill Sunday. It included a provision axing the cap on Milwaukee's school vouchers program…
A coalition of right-leaning education reformers have recently and sharply broken with the growing federal influence Republicans and Democrats have broadly supported in recent decades. This edusphere tussle connects education to the wider debate Americans (evinced most loudly by Tea Party…