Matt Barnum

Matt Barnum

Author

Matt Barnum is the editor and a columnist for Chalkbeat Ideas, a section devoted to explaining and examining the ideas and debates shaping American schools. Before launching this section, Matt covered K-12 education for the Wall Street Journal. While there, he chronicled the ways technology is changing schools and broke news about the Trump administration's plans to close the Education Department. Prior to that, he helped start Chalkbeat's national coverage in 2017 as that team's first reporter. Matt's reporting has been recognized by the Education Writers Association and the American Educational Research Association. He was also a Spencer fellow in education journalism at Columbia University and started his career as a middle school language arts teacher.

While students who attend only a KIPP middle school don’t seem to benefit, those who attend KIPP for both middle and high school experienced large gains.

“I would love us to try to agree on some goals,” said Arne Ducan at a forum on Tuesday. “I don’t have a lot of optimism that it’s going to come at the national level.”

Here’s what we know: high-poverty schools face a bigger cliff, that more federal money won’t be forthcoming, and that school budgets will be shaped both by districts’ own financial decisions and those made by state politicians.

Her book discusses the racial history of school vouchers, the more progressive arguments for school choice, the rise of charter schools, and choice advocates’ recent focus on culture war issues.

This suggests that critiques of American education are making inroads with the public, but don’t appear to reflect most parents’ own experiences.