BREAKING: the Ohio legislature does something we can be proud of -- a new bill (HB644) called the Higher Education Evidence-Based Innovation Fund -- breaking down why this rocks in thread! www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/...

The Sloan Foundation recently supported a @scientistsorg.bsky.social event that asked what it takes to design initiatives centered on big, challenging goals that lead us to better science, and why many previous "moonshots" have fallen short. Read the takeaways: fas.org/publication/...

This Kind Of Smart, Reliable, Mixed-methods Evidence Is Illegal To Build In Most American Agencies

UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities@cepeo-ucl.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A new Economics of Education Research Centre (EERC) — run by CEPEO, @cep-lse.bsky.social and @theifs.bsky.social — has been awarded a ~£3m DfE contract to build the evidence base on economic and social returns to education and skills, from early years to post-16. www.ucl.ac.uk/consultants/...

The problem with sacred cows isn't that they existed – it's that they have taken on new life as facts, even as the world changes around them. @merici.bsky.social takes on the sacred cows of digital government delivery, and what we can win if we put them out to pasture. fas.org/publication/...

What Did We Stop Questioning in Digital Government Delivery?

Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.

fas.org

your alarm bells should *always* go up when you read about ginormous effect sizes like this. in this case, the study looks at a pretty small number of album release days (10) and finds an increase of 18.2 fatalities nationwide on those days. I don't find that particularly convincing!

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 7mo ago

Over the past several years, traffic fatalities in the U.S. increased by nearly 15% on the same days as the biggest album releases from artists like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, researchers from Harvard Medical School found.

Universities think they're too nerdy for city hall. City hall thinks they're not nerdy enough for universities. Meanwhile, communities wait for solutions. The new Civic Research Agenda report digs into what's stalling the research-to-impact pipeline — and how to fix it. fas.org/initiative/c...

The Civic Research Agenda - Federation of American Scientists

The Civic Research Agenda is the first comprehensive reporting on the priority research needs of American cities and counties.

fas.org

she’s a 10 but Excel thinks she’s October

Attending #2025APPAM? Come check out my session this Saturday where I'm partnering with colleagues to talk about the future role of evidence synthesis and AI in powering better policy- and decision-making.

also worth noting that TX-18, a heavily democratic district, has been without a rep since January...

NPR@npr.org · last yr.

The Arizona Democrat would be the decisive signature on a petition to force a vote on releasing the records. But Speaker Mike Johnson says he will not swear her in until after the shutdown is over. n.pr/4o30DrC

This is illegal. www.gao.gov/blog/what-po...

Politico@politico.com · last yr.

White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled in end-run around Congress' funding power.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · last yr.

New, from me: America is no longer a functioning democracy. It is a competitive authoritarian system, hurtling rapidly toward authoritarianism. This was a hard piece to write but we can't move forward if we don’t acknowledge where we are. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...

Rep. Wesley Hunt has spent months trying to get officials to hire Elon Musk’s The Boring Co. to build a major flood control project in Houston. The company has pitched tunnels that are far smaller than what may be needed to address the flooding issues.🤔 @lmcgaughy.bsky.social @chengyilun.bsky.social

A Texas Congressman Is Quietly Helping Elon Musk Pitch a $760M Plan to Build Tunnels Under Houston to Ease Flooding

For years, experts in Houston have been studying the idea of building massive tunnels to divert floodwaters and save lives and property. Now Elon Musk’s tunneling company wants a piece of the project.

propublica.org

Truly wild that this entire story doesn't mention the fact that DOGE nuked USDS and 18F, which actually did this work for years. Including online passport renewal and the creation of Direct File to make filing taxes easier! www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Trump’s new chief design officer aims to make federal websites ‘satisfying’

Joe Gebbia, an Elon Musk ally who also worked for DOGE, said navigating dot-gov websites should be just as easy as visiting the Apple Store.

washingtonpost.com

Ever since the former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics was dismissed by the Trump administration in February, I wanted to hear her story. Peggy Carr was among a string of Black senior officials fired in early 2025. (1/3)

Posted in the State Department. The resistance always grows. Tomorrow there will be more of us.

It’s true, FEMA doesn’t serve people as well as it should. But it’s also clear that in large part the tragedy unfolding in Central Texas was exacerbated by a failure of local and state officials’ response. So why should Texans trust those same people to manage their recovery?

NPR@npr.org · last yr.

The governor and top emergency official in Texas are both members of a council advising the Trump administration on options for eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

for my #edusky people, highly recommend this resource the HEDCO institute just dropped that is tracking research on four-day school weeks (and all their research dashboards!): hedcoinstitute.uoregon.edu/dashboards/f...

real bummer finding out that literally everything was on the honor system this whole time

Yesterday, June 2, was an interesting day at work. I was reporting a story about how the Education Department hadn't delivered a report to Congress on the Condition of Education, despite the June 1 deadline mandated by law. 🧵 (1/9)

A blast from my past: New evidence on the program Skew the Script finds promising impact of the curriculum on AP test scores. This resource helped me bring Beyonce, influencer salary, and food deserts into the conversation into my math classroom! skewthescript.org/blog/harvard... #edusky #mathsky

Harvard researchers find evidence that Skew The Script boosts AP Stats scores — Skew The Script

A research group at Harvard found evidence that Skew The Script lessons had a causal impact on AP Stats scores across Texas…

skewthescript.org

Delighted to see this piece with Victor Ambros, @carlbergstrom.com, Carol Greider, @michaelemann.bsky.social, and @briannosek.bsky.social in the wild. Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it @standupforscience.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla

The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science

theguardian.com

The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors

The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist

The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.

notus.org

Exactly what we’ve been SCREAMING about since this whole mess started. This was inevitable. It’s not fault of the office itself. It’s entirely the fault of the current administration.

Dr. Samantha Montano@samlmontano.bsky.social · last yr.

9 people were killed in a tornado last night in KY. The NWS office responsible for that area has faced some of the most extreme cuts by the Trump administration, including the loss of overnight forecasting. Last night, they were rushing to find help for the office. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/w...

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress

I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

time.com

THREAD | Today, our team from the @scientistsorg.bsky.social and the Future Evidence Foundation shared a report sharing learnings and recommendations from a year-long design sprint that explored potential use of an innovative approach, living evidence, at the federal What Works Clearinghouse.

Last summer, we @scientistsorg.bsky.social sourced 100+ science and technology policy ideas that would be ready in-time for whoever took office to act on. We gave the authors of these ideas the tools to push for them, support them, and turn them into actually-implemented policy.

Visiting the Whitney Plantation changed my life, and I think about the lessons it taught me constantly. It is emotionally heavy but so worth your time to prioritize visiting, especially now.

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2y ago

A plantation museum focused on the truths of slavery had two grants for Black history and culture terminated in ‘furtherance of president’s agenda’

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower was not just a novel, but an actual prophecy...

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2y ago

A measure to formally launch Starbase — the town long dreamed of by Elon Musk to be home to his rocket company, SpaceX, and its 3,500 employees — is now on the ballot in Texas.

Linda McMahon said just two weeks ago at ASU+GSV that NAEP was "something we absolutely need to keep" and that it's "what keeps us honest, because it's comparing apples to apples."

Jill Barshay@jillbarshay.bsky.social · 2y ago

NAGB just voted (reluctantly) to kill several NAEP exams over the next 10 yrs. Cuts: 1) No Long-Term Trend NAEP at all until 2033. 2) No 4th grade science in 2028 and no 12th grade science in 2032. 3) Writing scrapped altogether. 4) No 12th grade history in 2030 (1/3)

Funding for the education department's online library is slated to end: hechingerreport.org/proof-points... via @jillbarshay.bsky.social

A treasure trove of education reports and studies is under threat

Funding for the Education Department’s online library, ERIC, is slated to end this week

hechingerreport.org