While many currencies portray images of national heroes, Singapore’s 2 dollar bill shows students in a classroom. Underneath, there is just one word, Education. Singapore is #1 in most int'l student assessments
shorturl.at/DmJFn see also: shorturl.at/gSzFJ
Never Close the Schools Again. I saw an ad for this book by Irvin Studin. This line caught my attention:
“the largest simultaneous policy and administrative move in human history” describing the COVID-19 pandemic era school closure of 2020-2022
globalbrief.ca/order-dr-irv...
How did Mississippi go from being ranked 49th in the nation for reading to 9th?
youtube.com/shorts/zCaIw... via @YouTube
Smoking Patterns and the Widening US Mortality Gap
@nberpubs www.nber.org/digest?page=...
TEACHER VOICE: We don’t have a math problem in Arkansas or in the United States. We have a culture problem hechingerreport.org/math-learnin...
Department of Education Reform February 2026 Newsletter
Department of Education Reform February 2026 Newsletter
Department of Education Reform February 2026 Newsletter
shorturl.at/MLCmE
The economist tackling the global learning crisis @angrist_noam
boldscience.org/the-economis...
Just out in the new look IZA series my paper w/ Angelica Rivera. We use 1987 Compulsory Schooling Law as instrument to estimate returns to schooling. Reform increased schooling among compliers by 0.6–0.7 years and yields a return of 11.7% > OLS
docs.iza.org/dp18364.pdf
Another benefit of cash transfers: sleep -- household heads surveyed just after an unconditional cash transfer report a 0.4 standard deviation improvement in sleep quality compared to those surveyed just before
pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...
Arkansas Will Soon Hold Back Kids Who Can’t Read. But That Alone Is Not Enough
www.the74million.org/article/arka...
New in The 74: Arkansas’ 3rd-grade retention is coming — but retention isn’t the reform
Arkansas is about to implement a high-stakes element of the Right to Read Act: beginning this summer, third-graders who aren’t reading proficiently can be retained. That reality is creating understandable…
Research from Mississippi shows 3rd-graders who struggle with literacy need intensive interventions both before and after they are retained
www.the74million.org/article/arka...
Arkansas Will Soon Hold Back Kids Who Can’t Read. But That Alone Is Not Enough www.the74million.org/article/arka...
Alabama offers three tricks to fix poor urban schools
Adjusted for student poverty, southern states are beating the rest www.economist.com/united-state...
Worth the read: “we need an open, dynamic system where educators have the freedom to design new schools — and parents have the power to choose among them” @nytimes.com opinion by Jorge Elorza
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/o...
Launching the Human Capital & Education Returns (HCER) Lab at @UArkansas EDRE.
We study the real economic returns to education — using causal methods, global data, and U.S. evidence — to inform policy and finance decisions.
edre.uark.edu/humancapital...
📘 Just published: Learning for All Luminos Fund’s white paper on advancing inclusion in low-learning contexts. It offers a practical, evidence-based framework to ensure every child can access joyful, foundational learning. Read it here 👉 luminosfund.org/blog/learnin...
The Southern Surge:
These Three Red States Are the Best Hope in Schooling
by @NickKristof
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/o...
Mark Carney: Listens to The Clash, loves London Calling
(youtube.com/watch?v=TZmh...)
National 'Edu-Scholar' Impact Rankings Feature Five Education Reform Faculty Members url:https://news.uark.edu/articles/80711
Department of Education Reform: Impact in Arkansas
Our latest newsletter highlights how the Department of Education Reform, Arkansas Teacher Corps, and the Office for Education Policy are making a real impact across Arkansas. This month’s spotlight features new research on the returns to education…
How to boost learning in low-income countries -- "with an average annual spending of just $55 per child (PPP$172), spending on education in LICs is in stark contrast even to lower-middle income countries" blogs.worldbank.org/en/education... via @WorldBank
On International Day of Education, we’re reminded that education isn’t just a right — it’s an economic investment with measurable returns. My paper on the returns to schooling documents how education boosts earnings and economic outcomes globally: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
How hard is tutoring to get right? @MichaelPetrilli brings together scholars to discuss. I was proud to contribute.
schooledbymikepetrilli.substack.com/p/how-hard-i...
Honored that our COVID-19 learning loss paper (published in Science of Learning) was highlighted in Springer Nature’s “Top Posts from the Research Communities in 2025: A Year in Review.”
Read here: shorturl.at/XiH62
Our new @Glabor_org working paper:
The Returns to Education in Arkansas
Evidence from the 1987 Compulsory Education Law
ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps...
Can More Schooling Change How We Act on Climate?
I’m pleased to share a new paper, co-authored with Diego Ambasz and Anshuman Gupta, A review of human development and environmental outcomes. Although there is now substantial research on how climate and environmental conditions affect human…
Education matters for climate—but evidence is thin
Our new review (w Ambasz + Gupta) of 31 studies finds most are observational; only 4 quasi-experimental.
Causal work shows education can shift attitudes but changing actual behavior is harder
More research needed
shorturl.at/eb5WE
Proud of @uarkansas.bsky.social Department of Education Reform:
Five EDRE faculty named among the Top 200 Most Influential Education Scholars in the 2026 Edu-Scholar Rankings by Education Week
EDRE has appeared every year since 2011.
🔗 www.edweek.org/education/op...
