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Sarah Montana

@smontana.bsky.social
105 followers 157 following 26 posts

PhD Student in Education Policy @ U of Maryland | formerly Deans for Impact, El Dorado High School English teacher, Aspen Institute, Girl Scout Troop 110, etc.

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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
More evidence that a major solution for diversifying the teaching workforce is just. paying. people. to. train. as. teachers. Especially potential teachers of color. Seems generally when the Q is "how do we support cash-poor communities to do more X", a solution is...just give people money.
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Morgan Polikoff @mpolikoff.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"Foundational expertise may be a prerequisite for extracting durable skill from AI-assisted practice." www.nber.org/papers/w3572...
nber.org
Does AI Assistance Enhance or Erode Expertise? Evidence from a Three-Month Field Experiment in Patent Drafting
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Every semester I read Wendell's " Paragraphs from a Notebook" essay to put me in my place about what analysis can offer us while I'm learning all my fancy research techniques. Rest well, sir.
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Wesley T. Morris @wesleytmorris.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A little late sharing this here: In a "new" EdWorkingPaper, Nicolas Dominguez-Mel, @smontana.bsky.social , @davidblazar.bsky.social, and I think broadly about what being a local teacher means and ask whether local teachers are more likely to stay in the profession and be more effective.
edworkingpapers.com
Teacher Localness, Early-Career Effectiveness, and Retention
Recruiting locally connected individuals has gained policy attention under recent “Grow-Your-Own” initiatives, yet evidence linking teacher localness to student achievement and retention is limited. U...
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Matthew A Kraft @matthewakraft.com · 30/07/2026
Brian Jacob gave a great presentation on the effect of schools adopting Yonder pouches to restrict cell phone use at #NBERSI2026. The paper has generated lots of 🔥 takes. I think it provides a window into the value & challenges of social science research. Full paper www.nber.org/papers/w35132
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"... literacy has always evolved with technology. The difference today is that our informational ecosystem has outgrown our definitions and models of assessment. ...What kinds of literacy are we actually measuring when we talk about reading scores? What literacies count as valuable?"
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Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Oxford University @oxforddemsci.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Did the iPhone *really* cause the baby bust? A more skeptical reading of the new viral study from LCDS Deputy Director @drjenndowd.bsky.social jenndowd.substack.com/p/did-the-ip...? #demography #econsky #causalsky @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social @oxpop.bsky.social
jenndowd.substack.com
Did the iPhone Cause the Baby Bust?
I'm not so convinced. An interesting new paper highlights the power and pitfalls of simple stories
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Have heard so many staffers say this, the implication being that the people on the ground got it wrong. Again. It just feeds a cycle of distrust between policy and practice.
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Deans for Impact (DFI) @deansforimpact.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Evidence-based teaching is spreading, but scale remains a challenge. @hollykorbey.bsky.social examines progress in teacher prep, highlighting DFI's decade of work & our CEO, Valerie Sakimura, on policy that centers the science of learning. hollykorbey.substack.com/p/special-report-what-will-it-take
hollykorbey.substack.com
Special report: What will it take to change teacher prep in the U.S.?
After a decade of working with teacher prep programs, Deans for Impact looks to expand its reach
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Been working through this list and highly recommended reading on curriculum, ed tech, and beyond.
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
You know those feel-good stories that don't make you feel good because it's about an individual trying to put a finger in the dike of a systemic injustice? We're teaching kids how to be that individual instead of teaching them how to see and fight the injustice.
cbsnews.com
How some U.S. schools are teaching kindness classes: "Just makes me want to be a better person"
Kindness 101 is a program that uses the stories CBS News finds in our "On the Road" series to teach kindness and character. The stories are paired with lesson plans created by a nonprofit at Iowa's Dr...
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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I wish I didn’t know as much about the end of Reconstruction as I do. If you understood what is being unleashed now, how it will touch every aspect of our civic life, and how difficult it will be to undo it, you wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.
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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
When I was in junior high, the Klan pamphleted on my town square. This was in the 21st century. The Supreme Court’s decision this week to gut the Voting Rights Act treats the Civil Rights Era like the distant past. But it’s not. My column: www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-...
liberalcurrents.com
The Supreme Court Delivers Another Victory for the Jim Crow Southernization of America
We must not forget how poorly buried the racial tyranny of the South's past is in America's present.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
@hollykorbey.bsky.social's latest has this jaw-dropping chart of the dispersion of teacher pedagogical knowledge across countries. Look at the spread on the US. We can say that's all alt cert people in the lower percentiles but I'm not convinced that's all of the explanation.
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Morgan Polikoff @mpolikoff.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
"We find that immigrant youth who acquired citizenship at birth are substantially less likely to engage in criminal activity, with estimates indicating a 70% reduction in crime." www.nber.org/papers/w3507...
nber.org
Birthright Citizenship and Youth Crime
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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NBER @nber.org · 15/04/2026
A study of around 44,000 papers finds that the credibility revolution has spread unevenly beyond applied micro, driven mainly by difference-in-differences, with finance and macro lagging by roughly 15 years, from Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham www.nber.org/papers/w35051
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Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
If any other intervention produced outcomes of this size - GPA improvements of .24SD & reductions in course failure of .14SD - districts would be desperate to implement it. Instead, because ethnic studies has been labeled as "woke," efforts to scale have slowed.
Cultural Relevance at Scale: The Effects of an Ethnic Studies Expansion on Academic Outcomes
Biraj Bishthttps://orcid.org/0009-0000-4008-04101, Sade Bonillahttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0618-23302, Grace (Ha Eun) Kim3, and Emily K. Pennerhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-4649-351X4
Abstract
Ethnic studies is a culturally relevant curriculum designed to address the instructional needs of an increasingly diverse student population. However, evidence regarding the effectiveness of this curriculum at scale remains limited. This study evaluated the impact of districtwide implementation using a student-level difference-in-differences design with two-way fixed effects. We found that enrollment increased overall grade-point average by 0.17 points (0.24 SD), with the largest gains observed in math and science, and reduced course failure by 5.6 percentage points (0.14 SD). These benefits extended to all student groups, with stronger effects among academically vulnerable, male, Black and Latinx students and those with individualized education plans. Our findings suggest that well-implemented ethnic studies can be scaled effectively and can potentially reduce disparities in student outcomes.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Alabama passed a law in 2011 that among many things required verification of family immigration status to attend public school. Attendance plummeted, dropouts increased, schools faced (additional) financial shortfalls, and it all got functionally repealed a year later. But sure, do it nationwide.
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Conor P. Williams @conorpwilliams.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
"White evangelical Protestants (63%) and white Catholics (55%), as well as Christian nationalism Adherents (75%) and Sympathizers (62%), are the only religious groups in which a majority supports detaining immigrants in internment camps." prri.org/research/ame...
prri.org
Immigration Enforcement, ICE, and Civil Liberties in the Second Trump Administration
The survey of over 5,000 adults provides a comprehensive assessment of Americans’ views on the immigration enforcement policies of President Donald Trump’s second administration
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 05/02/2026
Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Berea's Pell share is so much higher than other highly selective institutions that I had to make this chart wider.
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Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Corey DeAngelis says, "Low-income families benefit from school choice more than anybody else. This is a big deal for families who couldn’t afford private school before." That's a bald-faced lie based on every state's voucher data, not a "reasonable researchers disagree" issue.
woai.iheart.com
Rules For Texas' First School Choice Program Announced | News Radio 1200 WOAI | San Antonio's First News
After years of pushing, conservatives in Texas have finally won the school-choice battle. The rules for the new Education Savings Account (ESA) program—widely praised as the largest in the country—hav...
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Sarah Cohodes @cohodes.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
When we focus on the "brilliance" of unaccountable perpetrators, we are forgoing the brilliance of the young people deterred from their fields bsky.app/profile/coho...
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
What a phenomenally concise turn of phrase to describe this era.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
I have been struck in my very anecdotal experience tutoring students across multiple districts how often students are on a laptop in every class, all day. And how often they don't have a textbook, just slides to learn content from. 🤦🏼
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
I'm sorry what?
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Heard NPR cover this last night and they said "slight increase in suspensions but test scores improved" with no mention of the disproportionate suspensions for Black boys. They are paying a much higher cost than other students for this otherwise good news. We can't lose sight of that, or them.
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Rachel M. Perera @rachelmarisa.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
For context, 87% of school-aged kids are enrolled in public schools in the US.* (* a statistic we only know because of work the US Dept of ED used to do to collect vital data on our nation's schools)
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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Ending Black History Month & banning books by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a dark echo of the ways the military has been used in the past to advance racial rights in America. Frederick Douglass understood Black military service could help achieve citizenship. Truman saw integration as democratic necessity.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
It's important to add "out" here. These are just the queer youth who are out enough to themselves or others to indicate so on a survey. There are so many more kids uncounted who are affected, so this even understates the danger of these laws.
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NPR @npr.org · 26/09/2025
Education researchers warn budget proposals from the White House and House Republicans would impose steep cuts on some of the nation's most vulnerable students and disadvantaged school communities.
n.pr
What schools stand to lose in the battle over the next federal education budget
Education researchers warn budget proposals from the White House and House Republicans would impose steep cuts on some of the nation's most vulnerable students and disadvantaged school communities.
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Prof. Bob Howarth @profbobhowarth.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
One study concluded 70% of increased electric cost across US due to AI data centers. apnews.com/article/elec...
apnews.com
As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act
Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.
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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
You can use this tool to find out just how much funding your local district (or any district in the country) will be losing in the new federal budget: "DES MOINES INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT will lose $8,175,391 in federal funding." public.tableau.com/app/profile/... #EduSky #EdChat
HOW MUCH WILL YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT LOSE?
Federal budget cuts to public education will eliminate afterschool and summer programs, arts and technology classes, teachers, emergency preparedness, mental health services, and more.

Search for your state and school district to see how much your child’s education will be impacted.

DES MOINES INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
will lose $8,175,391 in federal funding.
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Look at what happens to male teacher salaries (blue line) v.s. female teacher salaries (red line) after collective bargaining laws expire.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
The 51st has become my go to for local reporting, in case you're wondering where to take your Post subscription...
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Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
I worry we are going to look back at the 2020's as the decade we talked way too much about phones in schools + way too little about the % of time students spend staring at a Chromebook screen in classrooms.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
I actually think people are going to miss the complicated, challenging and, yes, sometimes exclusionary social graces that make society possible. You really don’t want to get rid of all metaphorical language, scripts, and lies. They grease the wheels of mutual cooperation.
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Really handy data tool in this, helps clarify how much variation is happening between districts, even though the overall trend in salaries is bad news.
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Jill Barshay @jillbarshay.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
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)
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Erin Jean Warde @erinjeanwarde.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
What if the boat flipping orcas and the tariffed penguins formed a team
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Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I have tariffed the penguins that are on Heard Island and which you were probably assuming did not export goods forgive me they were taking advantage of us so cunning and so cold
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
More of this
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Timothy McBride @mcbridetd.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
These Are the Students Targeted by Trump’s Immigration Enforcement Over Campus Activism time.com/7272060/inte...
time.com
These Are the Students Targeted by ICE So Far
The Trump Administration is seeking to revoke a number of international students’ legal status to be in the U.S. over pro-Palestinian campus activism.
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Eddy Conroy @econroy.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
To go with the news that all ED staff have been ordered to leave their offices by 6pm tonight. This is almost certainly why. #EduSky
A screenshot of a tweet that says a reeducation in force at the department of education is expected tonight. Rumor is that it will cut approximately half of ED’s staff.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
I'm super excited to share this short brief on who has power over the Department of Education, what the ED Sec can do, and what Executive Orders can do. There's a lot of info (and links!) packed into one place. I hope it's helpful. Please share. drive.google.com/file/d/1QpeK...
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Sarah Montana @smontana.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
"One of the craziest bits about covering the systematic dismantling of democracy is this: the people doing the dismantling frequently tell you exactly what they’re going to do. They’re almost proud of it. They just wrap it in language that makes it sound like the opposite."
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
I annotated the revisions to the draft email and final email that Linda McMahon sent out to ED, which I think shows that their scaling back on their ambitions. Maybe. h/t to @marisakabas.bsky.social for being the first to share the draft and the email.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
SCOOP: Now that Linda McMahon is confirmed/sworn in as secretary, Trump will be imminently issuing an executive order eliminating the Department of Education. I’ve obtained a draft of an email that McMahon will be sending to staff re: the EO and the department’s “final mission”. Here is a portion:
After President Trump's inauguration last month, he has steadily signed a slate of executive orders to keep these education promises: combatting critical race theory, DEl, gender ideology extremism, and discrimination in admissions. President Trump has also been focused on eliminating wasteful bureaucracy and harmful programs in the federal government. To that end, today he signed [Executive Order XYZ, entitled "Eliminating the Department of Education,] which has given us a clear and final mission.

We are to identify which of the Department's functions, programs, and offices are not mandated by statute, and eliminate them. This reorganization will impact staff, budgets, reporting, and more —and in coming months, we will determine how it can be accomplished with minimal delay and disruption. The President further tasked us with creating a plan to reallocate and reassign functions of the Department of Education that would be more effectively managed by other agencies. This plan will offer Congress a road map toward fulfilling the expectations of the President and the American people.

The new vision—which I hope each of you will embrace going forward—can be expressed as four main convictions:
Parents are the primary decision makers in their children's education.
Students deserve to be protected from physical violence, racial discrimination, medical tyranny, and gender extremism ideology on campus.
Postsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs. 
Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning: proficiency in math, reading, and core subjects, and patriotism in American history and civics.
As we move to reduce the Department's middleman role in education, these four convictions must guide us toward conscientious and pragmatic action. The elimination of bureaucracy should free us, not limit us, in our pursuit of these goals

Removing red tape and bureaucratic barriers will empower parents to make th
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Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
We’re witnessing a Brexit-level instance of completely unnecessary economic destruction. A country that’s not hit by any shock, but simply chooses policy self-harm.
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