Sean Gill
@seangill.bsky.social
Education consultant, writer and analyst. https://www.linkedin.com/in/srgill/
Oh boy the unintended consequences of this will be interesting to watch
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2w ago“The Los Angeles Unified Board is banning student access to AI tools on district-provided laptops and tablets. The announcement comes after the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to limit screen time for students in June.”
Always interesting to see what from the edu sphere makes it into campaign appeals
Amy Klobuchar@amyklobuchar.com · 4w agoToday I was at Eisenhower Elementary in Hopkins to discuss my plan to get student achievement up and screen time in the classroom down.
#EdData doesn't get better in a vacuum. In June, SPEND Initiative convened our first Working Group with @edfund.bsky.social — a day-long session with education finance researchers from universities, research organizations, and policy shops across the country: eduspend.substack.com/p/building-t...
Building the Data Researchers Actually Need: What We Heard From the Field
Over the past two posts, I’ve written about what education finance data cannot tell us: why we still don’t have a detailed understanding of the impact of $189.5 billion in ESSER spending, and the impo...
eduspend.substack.com
This whole thread is fascinating and might well change my priors.
Max Dubler 🏳️🌈@maxdubler.com · 2mo agoI think my most genuinely unpopular take is that a widely held and genuine consumer preference for cheaper, lower-quality goods, not private equity, is driving the decline in quality of consumer goods like clothing and housewares.
Great pick for Indy's new education oversight board www.wfyi.org/education/20...
Mayor picks national charter leader to head new agency over IPS, Indy charters
Karega Rausch, a longtime national charter school advocate, was unanimously chosen to lead Indianapolis's new agency overseeing both IPS and charter schools.
wfyi.org
This institutional knowledge is hard to replace
Cara Jackson@carajackson.bsky.social · 3mo agoFrom the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education, a concise summary of the devastation: the Institute of Education lost at least 84% of its employees. Research in progress or nearly complete is just *poof* gone, a complete waste of Congress's investment. oig.ed.gov/sites/defaul...
This photo is of Betty Simmons, who was more than 100 yrs old when she was interviewed in 1937 in Beaumont, TX. She was married during slave times, and widowed, but was very happy that freedom came when it did because her enslavers were preparing to put her 3-yr old child to work in the fields.
Library of Congress@librarycongress.bsky.social · 3mo agoFor #Juneteenth: 70+ years after the Civil War, the WPA's Federal Writers' Project began interviewing elderly Americans who remembered being enslaved. These moving narratives & photos are now held here at the Library. Narratives: www.loc.gov/collections/... Photos: www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...
Improving the education finance infrastructure can help us answer questions like these open.substack.com/pub/eduspend...
The $189.5 Billion Question: Why We Still Don’t Know How ESSER Was Spent
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S.
open.substack.com
“The Dashboard and LCAP do not, in practice, play the role of helping districts undertake strategic, long-term planning,”
EdSource@edsource.org · 4mo agoLandmark Stanford research finds California’s education system lacks coherence LEARN MORE: bit.ly/4u50jLY
Enrollment at districts in California declined by 1.4%, would have been worse if not for transitional kindergarten (4 year old) growth edsource.org/2026/declini...
California schools face budget cuts as enrollment drops by 74,961 students
California K-12 schools experienced the largest decline in enrollment since 2021-22 due to declining birth rates and immigration losses, resulting in budget deficits, staff layoffs and program cuts.
edsource.org
Sean Gill@seangill.bsky.social · 5mo agoState-funded Pre-K enrollment (four-year-old preschool) is growing, but levels vary by state. A lot of this growth is in the K-12 system. Interesting research questions to explore in the years to come - enrollment and finances in the immediate term, academics in the long run #edresearch
State-funded Pre-K enrollment (four-year-old preschool) is growing, but levels vary by state. A lot of this growth is in the K-12 system. Interesting research questions to explore in the years to come - enrollment and finances in the immediate term, academics in the long run #edresearch
> @mpolikoff.bsky.social: Schools must figure out how to get kids to complete the hard work necessary to learn, in spite of AI’s temptations. More in-class work/assessment, less busy work, & coaching parents, too, on dangers #edchat @uscrossier.bsky.social @edsource.org edsource.org/2026/ai-revo...
COMMENTARY: AI in schools could be a disaster, but it doesn’t have to be
We need leaders at all levels — but especially at the state level where policy is usually made — to offer districts clearer support and guidelines about appropriate and inappropriate uses.
edsource.org
#Crows in the #Seattle area seem to have found a new overnight roost 🐦⬛ www.uwb.edu/news/2026/03...
Solving the mysterious disappearance of UW Bothell’s crows - News
Faculty expert provides his theories as to why crows no longer roost at the North Creek Wetland on campus
uwb.edu
Underenrolled, historic school buildings are finding new life as housing - potentially ensuring that neighborhoods don't suffer from blight and increasing the number of teachers that live within their districts www.the74million.org/article/as-e...
As Enrollment Falls, Old Schools Find New Life as Apartments
In 2024, nearly 2,000 apartments opened in former schools. Some see the conversions as a cure for neighborhood blight. Others fear gentrification.
the74million.org
The story of ed tech is a repeated loop of massive hype and massive disappointment See MOOCs, and now AI Evidence can interrupt this unproductive cycle The Stanford SCALE Initiative, led by rock star Prof Susanna Loeb, brings evidence to the conversation scale.stanford.edu/sites/defaul...
ICYMI @edfund.bsky.social has a new RFP for research projects in education finance - Letters of interest due April 24 ed-fund.org/research-fun... #eduresearch #edpolicy #edfinance
Research Funding Opportunities - EdFund
Research funding opportunities At EdFund, we envision evidence-based state funding policies that align with district and student needs. To make this vision a reality, we need research that is actionab...
ed-fund.org
Keen insights here. She describes well some classroom dynamics that are very hard to explain but yet you can immediately feel when you’re in a classroom
Morgan Polikoff@mpolikoff.bsky.social · 6mo agoI enjoyed reading this www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...
Four‑day school weeks are gaining traction—but do they deliver on their promises? Hear new findings from @nwea.bsky.social's Emily Morton & @annenberginstitute.bsky.social's @andrewmcamp.com on April 22 at 1 PM ET. Register: bit.ly/4rNbwP3
Interesting
Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 6mo agoThis is why the Center for Building is taking on plumbing codes next. The inefficiencies caused by codes are staggering. Tons of unnecessary vent piping, wider diameters than needed, expensive and difficult-to-join metallic materials where plastics are used elsewhere. www.wsj.com/personal-fin...
Enrollment at Illinois public K-12 schools is down 10% over the past decade. Will some schools have to close? ipmnewsroom.org/enrollment-a... (Yes, though if you're not also prepared to offload the property & downsize the staff you're going to have big fights with relatively little to show for it.)
Enrollment at Illinois public K-12 schools is down 10% over the past decade. Will some schools have to close? - IPM Newsroom
Schools closing isn’t super common, but it does happen. Data WNIJ obtained from the Illinois State Board of Education shows 72 public schools have closed in the past five years.
ipmnewsroom.org
Regardless of how you might feel about ESA programs, the opportunity to examine transaction-level spending data in education, and at the student-level to boot, is pretty interesting. It's a lot of data, though! www.edchoice.org/2026-is-ariz...
Is Arizona’s ESA Plagued by Unallowable Expenses?
Our new report digs into the transaction-level data to find out about whether those dollars are in fact going to educational expenses.
edchoice.org
Happy belated ESSER liquidation to all who celebrate... 😉 Seriously, agree with takes here. Let's hope we start building the data infrastructure to track #education spending more systematically/seamlessly, so that we have a better sense of what worked and what didn't www.k12dive.com/news/esser-p...
ESSER pandemic spending is over. What will its legacy be?
Education finance experts say the effectiveness of relief funds is hard to measure — but schools would be worse off without the money.
k12dive.com
Love this explainer. That short-term costs are “sticky” is a tenet of basic economics, but this shows just what that means in schooling: substack.com/home/post/p-...
California is spending more than ever on education . . . Why are so many districts going broke?
Jon Fullerton
substack.com
In a recent year, #Hawaii's public schools purchased more imported canned fruit (including pineapple!) than they did any local food, despite a state mandate that the islands source 30% of #schoolmeals by 2030 www.civilbeat.org/2026/03/push...
'Structural Disaster': Audit Slams DOE Over Local Food Mandate
The DOE has not taken the effort seriously and has no real plan for how to meet a legislative mandate to spend 30% of its food budget locally by 2030, according to a state audit.
civilbeat.org
Interesting notes here. I do wonder if open meetings acts get in the way of coalition building
Maureen Kelleher@maureenkelleher.bsky.social · 7mo agoChicago Board of Education Member Anusha Thotakura speaks candidly about the need to change school district culture to hold itself accountable to an elected school board. board-rule.ghost.io/infocus-anus...
"Districts struggle to move closed school buildings into productive reuse, and holding vacant buildings is expensive" www.researchforaction.org/news-events/...
The Land-Use Question: When School Closures Become Neighborhood Policy - Research for Action
By Alyn Turner When districts announce school closures, the framing is almost always educational: declining enrollment, underutilized buildings, operating costs, academic performance. But for the comm...
researchforaction.org
