ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew Ladner
My background story
What I did before joining Step Up For Students
What do I do on my day off?
How to reach out?
03/26/24 | Matthew Ladner
COVID school shutdowns: four years on
Somewhere around four years ago, public school systems around the country began “temporarily” shutting down as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States had a plan, an allegedly...
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03/19/24 | Matthew Ladner
Housing and schooling abundance versus demographic decline
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s instigated an enormous Russian baby bust. Geopolitical analysts Peter Zeihan predicted in a 2014 book that Russia would invade Ukraine...
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03/12/24 | Matthew Ladner
Governor Abbott deals a setback to the Texas district industrial lobbying complex
During the 2013 Texas legislative session, I made my way to Houston to visit one of the grand old men of Texas K-12 reform, the late/great Charles Miller. Miller...
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03/05/24 | Matthew Ladner
American K-12 shortchanges kids and teachers but spaghettifies your bank account
The Reason Foundation released a new study called Public Education at a Crossroads: A Comprehensive Look at K-12 Resources and Outcomes for All 50 States. Nationwide data from...
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02/20/24 | Matthew Ladner
Children are our future
America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic represents an unmitigated disaster for children, a huge number of whom dropped out of school. The 74 million published the below graphic on public...
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02/13/24 | Matthew Ladner
A trade in other people’s children
An episode of Paul MM Cooper’s outstanding documentary podcast series “The Fall of Civilizations” recounts the history of Carthage, which includes details of wars fought between the Carthaginians and Syracuse...
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01/08/24 | Matthew Ladner
‘Keep Katie’s hands off of my future’
Arizona ESA families rallied at the state capitol Monday to oppose Gov. Katie Hobbs’ proposals to “reform” the Empowerment Scholarship Account program. Lawmakers who spoke at the event pronounced the...
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01/04/24 | Matthew Ladner
Governor Hobbs to Arizona: Choice for me but not for thee
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who fruitlessly called for a repeal of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account during her first year in office, is following up with a plan in her second...
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01/03/24 | Matthew Ladner
Another Happy New Year for education freedom
As we prepare to say goodbye to 2023, it is worth noting what an extraordinary year it was for parental choice advocates. As recently as 2022, no states had statewide...
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12/19/23 | Matthew Ladner
Opinion: Why NAEP scores should be used with skepticism when ranking states’ charter schools
Harvard University’s Paul Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel wrote a response to a critique of their Charter School Report Card. The authors note that I misinterpreted their study in saying...
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12/12/23 | Matthew Ladner
‘They can’t drain our districts; only WE can drain our districts!’
Americans started a Baby Bust in 2008 (on behalf of Gen-Xers-welcome you to the club youngsters!) In addition, the public school system seems determined to do their best imitation of...
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12/05/23 | Matthew Ladner
Paging Special Agent Johnny Utah to investigate Utah mystery
“Point Break” follows the adventures of newly minted FBI Special Agent Johnny Utah as he unravels the mystery of a group of Los Angeles bank robbers known as “the Ex-Presidents.”...
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11/28/23 | Matthew Ladner
Every waitlist is a policy failure
Harvard professor Roland Fryer took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal recently to urge lawmakers and advocates to reinvigorate the drive to Milton Friedman’s vision of a dynamic...
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11/21/23 | Matthew Ladner
The Nation’s Charter Report Card Demonstrates a Broader Need to Update School Quality Thinking
Paul E. Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel recently published a ranking of state charter school sectors based upon their NAEP 4th and 8th grade proficiency rates between 2009 and 2019....
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11/14/23 | Matthew Ladner
‘Game Changers’ in K-12 choice
Perun, the rock star of Australian defense economists doing awesome hour-plus hour PowerPoint presentations on YouTube, recently did two such presentations on “game-changing” weapon systems in the ongoing Ukraine-Russian war....
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11/07/23 | Matthew Ladner
Go Down, Moses
Go down, Moses Way down in Egypt’s land Tell old Pharaoh Let my people go The Texas House of Representatives closed out the 3rd special session by filing a deeply...
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10/31/23 | Matthew Ladner
Building a bridge to the 21st century nowhere
In 2005, the Alaskan Congressional delegation created a national controversy when they attempted to secure $398,000,000 to build a bridge to an island with 50 inhabitants. Known as “the...
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10/24/23 | Matthew Ladner
Clickbait versus innovative therapy
Last week, I watched a panel hosted by Harvard University on “Emerging School Models: Moving from Alternative to Mainstream.” During the discussion, John Kirtley of Step Up For Students noted...
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