If education philanthropists want to influence policy, then they must open themselves to more public debate about their  plans and goals.

Normally, we expect to get thanked when giving a few bucks to a good cause. When it comes to K-12 schooling, though, folks giving away millions have been slammed for their trouble.

In his new book, The Same Thing Over and Over (Harvard University Press, November 2010), AEI director of education policy studies Frederick M. Hess explains that American schools have not changed since the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and, as a result, are ill-suited to meet today's challenges.

Steven Brill’s Class Warfare is an immensely readable take on a slice of the “school reform” movement and an intriguing look at some key individuals in that effort. But, as is shown by its treatment of philanthropy, the book is perhaps more revealing for what its author omits—and how its blinkered view can mislead readers on big questions.

The most intriguing and daring ventures in K-12 education today are the efforts to reimagine the way American schoolchildren learn. Entrepreneurial ventures like Teach For America, the KIPP Academies, New Leaders for New Schools, and High Tech High are reinventing the definition and delivery methods of public education. Yet these...

Despite the lack of rigorous research on the subject, reform proposals to reduce school size are quite popular these days. What does the best evidence say about the benefits of small schools? This event will feature Christopher Berry of the University of Chicago and Martin West of Harvard University, who...

When faced with the choice between two colleges with different records of success, if students and their families had comparable measures of college performance at their fingertips, they would choose the one with the better outcomes.

The world's poor do not have the luxury to play the ideological games that dominate Western politics and consign the malnourished to lives of hunger.