Education

AEI’s education policy scholars are exploring ways to strengthen America’s educational system as a vehicle for upward mobility, examining issues affecting early childhood, K–12, and higher education. Our scholars are committed to steering a path toward reinvention and reform that serves students; encourages personal responsibility; empowers parents, communities, and educators; overhauls outdated institutions; battles one-size-fits-all bureaucracy; and promotes the values that help fuel America’s astonishing success. AEI education is also the home of the Conservative Education Reform Network, a nationwide membership organization of leading conservative education policymakers, thinkers, advocates, and practitioners.

Report

December 13, 2021

American Enterprise Institute

The best way to ‘ban’ critical race theory: Prohibiting promotion rather than inclusion or compulsion

by Max Eden

Large majorities of all Americans (77 percent) and American parents (76 percent) support teaching students the success sequence — which states that young people who get at least a high school degree, have a job, and get married before having children are more likely to be financially secure and avoid poverty in later life.

Education K-12 Schooling

Op-Ed

December 14, 2021

New York Daily News

Read it and cheer: David Banks’ wise words about literacy instruction in NYC schools

by Robert Pondiscio

Education K-12 Schooling Leadership and Innovation

Blog Post

December 15, 2021

AEIdeas

The federal student loan repayment whiplash continues

by Beth Akers

Economics of Education Education Higher Education

Report

December 15, 2021

American Enterprise Institute

Enforcing disciplinary leniency: How the Office for Civil Rights dictated school discipline policy and how it could again

Education K-12 Schooling

The Return to Learn Tracker

The Return to Learn Tracker (R2L) is a tool developed by the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Education Policy Studies department, in partnership with The College Crisis Initiative (C2i) of Davidson College, that captures how over 8,500 US public school districts’ instructional models change during the coronavirus pandemic.

Visit the R2L Tracker Dashboard

Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Education

Critical race theory in K-12 public education has emerged as one of the most salient and divisive issues of 2021. Television and social media have been flush with accounts of CRT curriculum and practices. Several AEI fellows have sought to go beyond the outrage cycle to explain the deeper ways in which CRT ideology perverts pedagogy and subverts the purpose of public education.

Conservative Education Reform Network

This network will cultivate a national community of conservative leaders in education, spanning a broad array of issue areas, positions, regions, and viewpoints. At its launch, the network boasts more than 75 members, hailing from more than half the states, working in a variety of roles, and offering a far-flung range of expertise.

Learn More About This Network