Matthew Ladner

Phoenix

Executive Editor at reimaginED

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Articles

Oklahoma should avoid the example of Vercingetorix

1 week ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

Julius Caesar led Roman forces to victory in the decisive battle of the conquest of Gaul at Alesia. Having pursued the Gauls to a fortified city, Caesar first surrounded the city with a wall (to keep the Gauls trapped in Alesia) and then a second wall (to keep Roman forces protected from a relief army). Having completed these and other siegeworks, Caesar began the process of starving a surrender out of Alesia.
Arizona districts should lower the velvet rope for students with disabilities

2 weeks ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

Tim DeRoche featured the tale of an Arizona boy named Brayden in a Time Magazine piece on the shortcomings of open enrollment practice and law for students with disabilities:“In May 2022, an Arizona mom named Karrie got a heartbreaking message from the local public school: Her son Brayden wouldn’t be allowed to return as a second-grader in the fall. The reason?
The inevitable is always certain but not always punctual: self-driving school carpools

3 weeks ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

Back in 2017, techno-optimist Jason Bedrick made the skeptical Robert Pondiscio a bet on the adoption rate for self-driving cars in the Phoenix area:“Robert and I are putting our money where our mouths are. Although I expect that in five years, few people will be sending their kids to school in autonomous vehicles, I predict that at least 25 percent of children in the Phoenix area will get to school via a self-driving car by the 2022-23 school year.
Texas choice triumph calls for celebration and a shift for the movement

3 weeks ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

Texas school choice opponents are strong. I recall going to look up the number of lobbyists on retainer by groups opposed to choice during the 2013 legislative session, and the number was well over 100.
Lessons from SNAP wargames

1 month ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

On Dec. 16, 2017, the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture held a committee hearing on “Pros and Cons of Restricting SNAP Purchases.” SNAP is a federally financed food assistance program that faces many of the same dilemmas policymakers face over education savings accounts.
Open enrollment is the King Kong of Arizona district enrollment loss

1 month ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

If you look at enrollment trends in the Arizona districts with the largest total enrollment losses, look at the Arizona Open Enrollment report and the Quarterly ESA report, you get Figure 1. In Figure 1, both the gains from open enrollment (blue columns) and the losses to other districts and to charter schools (red columns) are presented. The purple columns represent the ESA enrollment of students who live in each of these districts.
Arizona continues to build Schools to Nowhere

1 month ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

In examining the 2024 NAEP results for Arizona, a rather stark picture emerged that Arizona charter and Arizona districts had strongly diverged– Arizona charter schools show academic recovery, whereas Arizona district scores sank, in some cases, to all time lows. This came despite district spending standing not only higher than charters on a per pupil basis and standing at or near record high levels.
Texas 2025 debate resurrects Edgewood Horizon claims

1 month ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

The current debate over ESAs in Texas has brought irresponsible claims about the Edgewood Horizon program back to life. A voucher program funded by philanthropists, Edgewood Horizon made all Edgewood Independent School District students (located within San Antonio) eligible to receive a voucher to allay private school expenses. The Horizon program ran from 1998 to 2007, peaking at approximately 16% of Edgewood’s enrollment.
It all keeps adding up

1 month ago | nextstepsblog.org | Matthew Ladner

I received some interesting responses to last week’s post where I showed some math on how few votes it could have swung control of the Arizona State Senate in the 2024 elections and noted that one of the Arizona political parties having proposed eliminating five popular choice programs may have helped Republicans expand their previous narrow majority.
Soaring levels of non-English speaking students may be driving national reading test scores into ground

2 months ago | readlion.com | Jaryn Crouson |Joe Mueller |Matthew Ladner |Lauren Jessop

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – Rapidly-increasing levels of non-English speaking students in schools across the nation may be contributing to the abysmal reading scores reported in recent years nationwide.