It’s Thursday, September 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large, this time brought to you by me, Maddy Kearns. Coming up: More on Hezbollah’s exploding pagers; Trump’s alleged would-be killer’s self-published book; Eli Lake on the right’s hypocrisy of conflating rhetoric with violence. And more.
Many of the greatest American success stories started in a public school classroom. Presidents like Harry Truman, LBJ, and Ronald Reagan. Legal giants like Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and Steve Jobs. But is our school system the great engine of meritocracy it once was? Consider the following:
Two-thirds of fourth and eighth graders aren’t proficient in reading, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a.k.a. “The Nation’s Report Card.”
Absenteeism nearly doubled between 2019 and 2023.
Between 2018 and 2023, American students’ math scores dropped 13 points, reaching the lowest U.S. levels since international comparison records began in 2003.
An independent assessment in 2023–24 shows eighth graders would need a full year to catch up to pre-pandemic levels—which is basically impossible.
American kids deserve better. And American parents are increasingly looking for the freedom to choose an education system worthy of their trust.
Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska all have school choice on the ballot this November. In Texas, school choice legislation has faced an uphill struggle, but the state’s governor says it’s poised to pass. If it does, Robert Pondiscio, a former public school teacher and current senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says the Lone Star State could be the most important “domino” to fall in what he calls “the choice revolution.” Given Texas’s size, should it join the other school choice states, this could mean “almost literally 50 percent of families in this country having the ability to privatize their child’s education using public dollars.”
But opponents of school choice, including teachers unions, say these laws direct resources away from public schools in need toward families who can already afford private education. Some say school choice is part of a right-wing agenda. Last December, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, went so far as to say school choice is “undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism.”
The truth is that in recent years the K–12 public school system has received $190 billion in additional federal funds—and sadly, they don’t have much to show for it. As the Defense of Freedom Institute documented in its July report, many public schools have wasted this money: Boston’s public school system used its Covid handout to hire at least 16 administrators, including a “staff wellness manager” and an “ethnic studies instructional coach and coordinator.” Milwaukee Public Schools bought 2,200 ukuleles, funded a “race-conscious teaching project,” and created a four-person “Gender Identity & Inclusion Department.”
In 2022, Minnesota elementary school test scores dropped below the national average for the first time in decades. As for the governor’s priorities? In 2023, former teacher Tim Walz signed a law requiring first-graders to “identify examples of ethnicity, equality, liberation and systems of power”; fourth graders to “identify the processes and impacts of colonization” and “resistance movements”; and high school students to “develop an analysis of racial capitalism” and “anti-Blackness.”
Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, has pledged to adopt a Parental Bill of Rights that would include “a form of universal school choice.” Exactly what that means on a federal level is unclear.
Meanwhile, millions of American parents aren’t waiting for politicians to fix this problem. Instead, they’re taking the education of their children into their own hands—pulling them out of the public school system and enrolling them in a range of new alternatives.
One alternative we’re exploring today is microschools. These are the twenty-first-century equivalent of the nineteenth-century “one-room schoolhouse,” where kids of different ages and abilities are taught together in a single classroom. Francesca Block was on the ground in Florida where one microschool entrepreneur expressed her hopes that soon “anybody can have a microschool that brings that kind of tailored experience of having a private tutor.”
Read Frannie’s report on “The Return of the One-Room Schoolhouse.”
Next, America’s first-ever Jewish classical school opened in New York City. The classical-education movement comprises more than a million students of diverse backgrounds. But Emet Classical Academy is unique in its blend of Torah studies with a liberal arts program steeped in the Western tradition. Peter Savodnik, reporting from the academy’s convocation, writes: “There was something missing in American schools, public and private, and it wasn’t just a matter of books or subjects, but mission.”
Read Peter’s dispatch: “Inside America’s First-Ever Classical Jewish School.”
Hezbollah Explodes. What Comes Next?
On Tuesday, hundreds of encrypted pagers in Lebanon and Syria started exploding. They belonged to members of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, and the blasts killed at least nine and injured thousands. Then, the next day, it happened again. Thousands more explosions across Lebanon, and this time not just pagers but also walkie-talkies—all of them belonging to Hezbollah terrorists. The explosions come after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel, and the terror group has vowed retaliation.
All of this is part of the ongoing “shadow war” between Israel and Iran’s proxies in the region. On the latest episode of Honestly, Michael Moynihan sits down with Dexter Filkins, a journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist who has been covering wars in the Middle East for decades. Listen to Michael and Dexter’s conversation in full by hitting the play button below, or subscribe to Honestly wherever you get your podcasts. And click here for a transcript of their conversation.
Eli Lake argues that Trump and his supporters are falling into the same trap as the left, blurring the lines between rhetoric and violence. Read his full op-ed: “Don’t Blame Political Violence on Political Rhetoric.”
River Page read Trump’s alleged would-be killer Ryan Routh’s self-published book so you don’t have to. Click here for the key takeaways.
In the latest roundup of Letters to the Editor, readers debate the limits to free speech, parental rights, and the power of a good education. Read all the submissions here.
New polling shows Kamala Harris gaining ground in three crucial states since last week’s presidential debate. Quinnipiac gives Harris a lead of six points over Trump in Pennsylvania, five points in Michigan, and one point in Wisconsin. The survey also showed little daylight between Harris and Trump on what are supposed to be two of his strongest issues: immigration and the economy.
And yet, polling from Gallup shows Donald Trump’s favorability rating is on the rise, hitting 46 percent this month—up from 41 percent in August. Harris’s favorability rating has fallen slightly, down from 47 percent in August to 44 percent this month. Nate Silver’s election forecast model shows a tightening race that has narrowed significantly. He puts Trump’s chances of winning at 52 percent. Ahead of the debate they were 61 percent.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Wednesday it will not endorse a presidential candidate this cycle. It’s a blow to Harris, who had been courting the union’s vote in recent weeks. The Teamsters have more than a million members and have endorsed every Democratic presidential candidate from 2000 to 2020. Internal polling shows a majority of members support Trump over Harris.
Some unexpected good news: After years of increases, drug overdose deaths are falling. CDC survey data indicates a 10.6 percent decline in fatal overdoses in a year, and in some states the decline is as steep as 20 or 30 percent. The drop has caught experts by surprise. “This is exciting,” Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told NPR. “This looks real. This looks very, very real.”
Fed chair Jerome Powell announced a half-point interest rate cut Wednesday. The aggressive cut suggests that the Federal Reserve hopes to preempt any economic slowdown. “The U.S. economy is in a good place and our decision today is designed to keep it there,” said Powell on Wednesday.
Students for Fair Admissions, the group that won a landmark case against racial preferences in college admissions last year, have warned Yale, Princeton, and Duke to “preserve all potentially relevant documents” should they be next. In letters to the institutions’ general counsels, SFFA wrote they were “deeply concerned” the universities aren’t complying with the Supreme Court ruling. “Based on SFFA’s extensive experience, your racial numbers are not possible under true race neutrality.”
Elon Musk says SpaceX will sue the Federal Aviation Administration in response to fines of more than $630,000 brought by the regulator for violating “launch license requirements.” The FAA rarely imposes fines on commercial space companies and Musk has accused the regulator of “lawfare.” We say: Let SpaceX cook!
ICYMI:, be sure to catch Episode One of our new series, Raising Parents with Emily Oster, and make sure you’re subscribed to listen to the rest of the series.
Wrong Halloween Costume? Straight to Jail.
Halloween costumes can be a risky business these days. In 2021, three professors at the University of South Alabama were suspended for their respective impersonations of a Confederate soldier and a hanging judge, while a third held a whip. In 2016, Erika Christakis resigned her teaching post at Yale after incurring outrage for encouraging students not to take Yale’s Halloween costume guidelines too seriously.
Were these the signs of a dangerous new intolerance descending on American public life? Absolutely. Could things here be a lot worse? You bet. Just look at the UK. My mother country isn’t exactly a bastion of liberalism these days. Thousands of people are arrested every year for posting online comments deemed to be “grossly offensive.”
But Britain’s low standards for free expression seem to have hit a new low with the case of 40-year-old David Wootton. Wootton was arrested last week for posting pictures of himself on his way to a Halloween party dressed as an Islamist terrorist. He now faces up to two years in prison.
Wootton was wearing a keffiyeh headscarf, sunglasses, and a white T-shirt with the words “I love Ariana Grande,” along with a backpack with the words “Boom” and “TNT” written on the front. Yes, he was dressed as the terrorist who killed 22 people and injured thousands in an attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017. (No one has yet explained why Wootton was attending a Halloween party in early September.)
It’s a low-effort costume, carried entirely by its shock value. “Bet I get kicked out of the party,” Wootton wrote in the caption on Facebook. “Only went and won the best costume,” he posted again later.
Wootton, who pleaded guilty to sending an offensive message online (an actual crime in the UK), has also relocated and changed his name because of the incident.
“There is a brand of humor which relies on its sheer inappropriateness,” writes Andrew Doyle, the British comedian and mastermind behind the satirical X account, Titania McGrath. “We might despise the joke and find it disturbing, but this does not mean that we shouldn’t also find it disturbing that in a supposedly free country a Halloween costume can land you in jail.”
Madeleine Kearns is an associate editor for The Free Press. Follow her on X @madeleinekearns.
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I'm a retired 34 year year high school teacher and think most critiques including yours miss the fundamental point that schools do not operate in a vacuum but within the cultural milieu. Learning is work and you have to buy into the process. Especially hard in today's environment of constant distractions. Scalia and RGB would do fine in today's public schools because they would understand why they were there. I don't think it matters much if schools ban phones during instructional time because the damn things have burrowed a wormhole into most young people's brains. What attention span?
An aside re: TFP:
While listening to Eli Lake's excellent recent 'Honestly' podcast, I noticed Bari's read ad for Ground News. And lo and behold, when I looked back at the FP homepage, the Ground News banner at top (I already subscribe to them -- it's a pretty useful service) that used to tag the FP as "leans right" was gone.
I assume this was the result of fair education, not some light 'corruption.'* 😉
*Don't get me wrong -- I always thought the label was unfair, and probably the result of an algorithm fooled by balanced opinion that swings further from the center, both left and right, than the typical "center" pub. I'm just curious about the change.