News

A new YouGov poll commissioned by Stand Together Trust shows Americans are generally against the United States going to war with Russia if it were to invade Ukraine and would prefer to focus more on domestic priorities over foreign issues.

At the recent Advancing Security: Realism, Restraint, and the Future of Foreign Policy conference, Dr. Will Ruger and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, discussed how America’s war in Afghanistan came to an end and what American interests are in Afghanistan going forward. Khalilzad emphasized in his comments that when he became Special Representative […]

With new home sales outpacing construction, a pressing need for skilled workers is a key limiting factor for improving housing inventory and affordability, according to the Home Builders Institute’s (HBI) Fall 2021 Construction Labor Market Report released on Nov. 4.  “The construction industry needs more than 61,000 new hires every month if we are to keep […]

On the EdSurge podcast, host Jeffrey R. Young takes a hard look at school grading systems and imagines “a world where letter grades don’t have so much power.”   The problem, Young says, is that “our current grading system can be a way for kids to prove themselves, win college scholarships, or gain admission to highly selective […]

A recent deep dive into the  impact and future of microschools, learning pods, and other learner-first programs by The 74’s Linda Jacobson features the Vela Education Fund and several of their grant recipients including the nature-focused microschool Green Gate, the homeschool co-op Cultural Roots, and Nevada’s Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy.   The 74 story begins with Megan Monsour, a parent who pulled […]

Most people understand the term “gerrymander” in political terms. That’s when a geographical area is divided into political units to give special advantages to one party or group.   But is our nation’s educational system also a product of gerrymandering?   In USA Today, reporter Alia Wong talked to Bellwether Education Partners and examined research which showed that […]

The latest numbers from the Nation’s Report Card, recently covered by the Washington Post and other outlets, reveal a sharp decline in student achievement. If we’re looking for a cause of these drops in performance, we don’t need to look far. It’s in the fundamental approach to learning in America. Our modern education system is built on the assumption that all kids should learn the same material […]

New learning approaches are continually being unveiled and the disruptions in schooling during the COVID pandemic only accelerated experimental approaches aimed at individualized education.  Washington Post tech editor Christina Passariello recently talked to Khan Academy founder and CEO Sal Khan. She observed that, “if there’s really a topic that people have thought a lot about over the last 18 months, it has to be education […]

Collaboration across political divides is necessary to solve big problems. And, as Texas Monthly has reported, that cooperation is possible even in polarized places like the Lone Star State.  With leadership from Stand Together Trust grantee Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), state lawmakers recently approved reforms to Texas’s troubled Child Protective Services (CPS) system that will keep more children with their parents. TPPF and a strong cross-ideological coalition of organizations worked with Republican and Democratic lawmakers to advocate for the “revolutionary” changes.     As Houston-area lawyer Tara Grigg-Green explained to Texas Monthly, […]

Americans should be thankful at the end of the United States’ longest war. Ending the military mission in Afghanistan and bringing our troops home is in America’s best interests.