Douglas N. Harris

Jun 6, 2024 | brookings.edu | Douglas N. Harris

Just before COVID-19, my wife and I were looking for a new school for my youngest daughter. Then entering middle school, we started by looking at the usual options, though we live in New Orleans, so the “usual options” are a bit unusual. Known for having no traditional public schools, we instead explored the city’s abundance of charter and private schools.

Dec 19, 2023 | brookings.edu | Douglas N. Harris |Michael Hansen |Katharine Meyer |Rachel Perera

As we head into 2024, experts from the Brown Center on Education Policy identify the education stories that they’ll be following in the new year, providing analysis on how these issues could shape the learning landscape for the next 12 months—and possibly well into the future.

Nov 7, 2023 | educationnext.org | Paul Peterson |Paula Arce-Trigatti |Jay Greene |Douglas N. Harris

For more than a century, children in the United States have been enrolled in public schools based on where they live, and pressure to improve public education has been mainly channeled through school board elections, inter-district housing decisions, and test-based accountability. Over the past 30 years, however, charter schools, vouchers, and public-school choice programs have challenged this model.

Aug 29, 2023 | brookings.edu | Douglas N. Harris

It’s natural for people to get stories wrong in crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. But we’re still getting key things wrong about COVID-19’s impact on schools after officially exiting the pandemic. Here, I describe three myths about the pandemic’s impact on public education.