Dear Colleagues:


Our Center for Education Policy is thrilled to announce that Dr. Jay P. Greene is joining our center as Senior Research Fellow. Jay was the founder and chair of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, where he served for 16 years. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on education policy, with highly influential research on a broad range of topics, from school choice to how education shapes character to the misuse of social science research in policy debates.

Jay has authored dozens of publications in peer-reviewed journals, the U.S. Supreme Court cited his research four times in the landmark school choice case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, and he has written or edited four books, including the best-selling Education Myths. His latest book is an edited volume released last fall <[link removed]>.

Still, my personal favorite <[link removed]> is a study I co-authored with Jay and Brian Kisida in 2007 in which we counted the number of Florida public schools named for manatees and compared that to the number of schools named for George Washington (manatees for the win! 11 to 5). We found similar results around country as school officials named local institutions more like country clubs than centers of learning, all of which demonstrated a decline in the civic mission of schools to teach children about America’s founding ideals.

Jay’s distinguished resume and clever analysis on any number of issues make him a perfect fit. We are so pleased to welcome him to the team.

What Else We’re Working On
Loan forgiveness is regressive. Last week on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal I explained that loan forgiveness may not cost students anything today, but someone has to pay the bill. “Forgiving” student loan debt actually means punishing taxpayers for someone else’s college degree. Two-thirds of Americans do not have a bachelor’s degree.


What if we also told you that loan forgiveness disproportionately benefits wealthy student borrowers? Lindsey Burke explained this in the Daily Signal <[link removed]> earlier this year. In fact, research <[link removed]> finds that proposals to forgive up to $50,000 in student debt would result in borrowers in the top 10 percent of the earnings distribution receiving six times the relief provided to borrowers in the bottom 10 percent
of earners. Sixty percent of student loan debt is held by the highest 40 percent of earners. You can watch the C-SPAN episode here <[link removed]>.


Elevator pitch: Next time you hear about the wonders of student loan forgiveness, ask why progressives want to volunteer taxpayers to favor the rich.


Rejecting discrimination. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution <[link removed]> explained this week that attendees at a
recent school board meeting in Cherokee County, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, did not want critical race theory’s discriminatory practices used in their schools. I explained to the AJC that critical race theory is “a philosophy or world view, with beliefs that could become part of curriculum and teacher training.”

I said, “It stigmatizes people based on race so it is by its very nature discriminatory.” I explained that the “focus on a ‘perpetual struggle’ against universal racism creates a tension that distracts from efforts to build opportunity.” Read on <[link removed]>.

Inside Higher Ed <[link removed]> asked this week how critical race theory has “become so politicized?” I explained that no one should be surprised that parents and lawmakers are rejecting the
use of critical race theory’s discriminatory ideas. I said that I am “most concerned about students being compelled to defer to divisive concepts, and about students being divided by race or other affinity groups for disparate treatment. But he also generally opposed critical race theory.”

More from the article: “Critical race theory is a philosophy, it's a worldview that believes that the perspective that we should take on for everything around us is about race and ethnic identity, and the founders of critical race theory and their predecessors in critical theory have said as much,” Butcher said. “By its very nature, critical race theory is a call to action, to ask people to apply the idea that this world is divided between people who are victimizers and people who are victims, and that goes back to your ethnicity. And so the consequences of that -- and sometimes it's, it's simply stated this way -- are that you should be treated differently based on the color of your skin. And that's an awful idea that should have been left in the ash heap of history, many years ago.” Read the article here <[link removed]>.


Empowing children--not systems--to counter learning loss. Last week, Jude Schwalbach wrote in the Daily Signal <[link removed]> about how school districts plan to spend the new emergency relief funds from the American
Rescue Plan (ARP). Unfortunately, many school districts plan to spend their ARP dollars on teacher bonues, new staff, and district budgets instead of investing emergency dollars in flexible options for children, such as temporary micro-ESAs.


"Instead of offering one-size-fits-all proposals to address each student’s unique set of needs, school districts should engage with their local communities and find policy solutions local stakeholders support. They should also revise their plans to offer families greater flexibility and provide targeted learning options for the children who need it most," he wrote.


First comes money, then regulations. Our colleagues Angela Sailor, Vice President of the Feulner Institute at Heritage, along with Adam Kissel, Senior Fellow at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, had an excellent piece in the Washington Examiner <[link removed]> about the many problems with the Biden "American Families Plan." As they explain, "First comes the money, then come the regulations. Meanwhile, the so-called government benefit makes it easier for providers to charge higher prices, so they do.

“The ‘benefit’ transfers from the individual to providers. Before long, rising costs have forced people to depend on subsidies to pay the higher price. Meanwhile, regulations get stricter, and then, everyone is stuck in the iron cage."

You may also be interested in a related report: President Biden's Plan Harms Families and Undermines Work <[link removed]>.


Recent Event


You can watch Lindsey’s last Policy Pulse <[link removed]> from
May 26 with Thomas Spoehr, The Heritage Foundation’s Director for the Center for National Defense, here.
Warmly,

Jonathan Butcher,
Will Skillman Fellow in Education
Center for Education Policy
Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity
The Heritage Foundation

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