Chad Aldeman
@ChadAldeman
I write about education finance policy and teacher labor markets. Father. Founder of @ReadNotGuess. Amateur bread-baker.
{new} For #TeacherAppreciationWeek, we should figure out why school spending is up but teacher salaries are not:
"Learning facts is going to fade into the background." 🤦♂️ Quick thread on why this is a terrible take🧵⬇️
Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann on why he chose Montessori for his daughter: "If this were 10-20 years ago, I'd be lining her up for top-tier schools and extracurriculars. But now I don't think any of it's going to matter. Learning facts is going to fade into the background. What…
{new} How Parents Support Math at Home When I put out a request for helpful tips, I collected a lot of examples of how parents incorporate math into baking, cooking, counting, games, and lots of everyday activities. Check it out: weareallsolvers.org/how-parents-su… via @StudentSuccess
Kudos to @SLOTUS for getting behind this -->
Kids in grades K-8 (and their parents): If you've been reading this summer, you can join the Second Lady's Summer Reading Challenge! Complete your reading log and submit by September 5: whitehouse.gov/read/. #2ndLadySummerReads @SLOTUS
Lots of good examples here of worthy and important research projects cut by the Trump Administration —>
With contracts severed and grants rescinded, experts say Washington’s hit to K–12 research will set back the field for years. @KevinMahnken reports Read more here: buff.ly/QC4kilb
Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.
One of the great things about @YAppelbaum's new book, "Stuck" is how much moving around was central to the American identity. That someone would stay stagnant, that they would remain bound forever in their home of their fathers, and grandfathers, that is un-American.
📖 The Start of Read Not Guess A reading program made by a parent—for parents. #ReadNotGuess #SummerReading #Literacy
Good story here from a rural school principal on how they improved reading scores: the74million.org/article/how-on…
The case for selective teacher retention (that is, work hard to keep the best and gently nudge-out those who are the worst). chadaldeman.com/p/is-teacher-t… @ChadAldeman
"“I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.” Obama weighs in on the Abundance wars
Looking for easy summer reading? Try Read Not Guess—free, fun, and phonics-based! #ReadNotGuess #SummerReading
This @voxdotcom piece by Constance Grady isn't as bad as I thought it would be. At least she talked to @ehanford & Marty West. "West says that the current concern over kids’ ability to read might actually be understated. “I’ve been struck by the lack of a sense of urgency on…
Link: vox.com/culture/419070…
This is an important point from @arotherham —>
From the vault via @The74 . If you define our education problems as problems of we don't know what to do rather than problems of political opposition to evidence-based approaches you're going to aim at the wrong target: Link ⬇️
And consider children. Nearly 25% of children, almost one in four, were uninsured in 1988. In 2023, only about 5% were. The child poverty rate also fell substantially over the past half century, in no small part due to expansions of non-health safety-net programs like SNAP & EITC
“As well as a nineteenth-century novel, the English literature GCSE [national assessment in England taken by 15-16 year olds] requires pupils to read a Shakespeare play, a poetry anthology, & a 20th century British text. Crucially, the exam is now closed book…pupils have to know…
This isn’t just anecdote anymore! We now have an empirical study showing this: nber.org/papers/w33986
But they do incentivize poor teachers with tenure, who are practically impossible to fire, to hang on, regardless of students’ results, until they maximize their pension benefits.