The arc from the Ford Focus Electric to the Ford Lightning F-150 has been a helpful backdrop for me in considering where we are in the U.S. and what's needed next to unlock potential and opportunity through education.

After 10 years as an Executive Director at Teach For America, I've taken a position with On Deck, a start-up working at the intersection of education and the internet. I'm grateful for my time at TFA and am excited to be joining an amazing team with gathering momentum around a clear mission.

Liz Chu leads the Center for Public Research and Leadership at Columbia University. She and her team recently released as vision for next school year, "RISE To Thrive." Liz joins me for an email interview.

Ross Douthat didn't say much about schools in his book, "The Decadent Society." In this post, I explore how his analysis also applies to education, both before and during the pandemic. I end by noting where to watch for signs of a renaissance should one begin to take root.

Charts and graphs tell stories. They also hide stories. There's as much to learn from what they mask as there is from what they reveal. One way to find what might be hidden: search for the discontinuity.

When thinking about what might change in schools, start with enrollment trends. Bottom line: public schools will rebound from 2020 declines including a return to in-person learning for most students who chose remote learning for 2020. Still, 1,000,000 students won't come back, and that's a big deal.

Platitudes in K-12 get us nowhere. 3,000,000 children haven't attended in-person or virtual school for a year because leaders chose inaction. Why?

Last May, two months into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in the United States, I wrote a piece outlining how the start to the '20-'21 school year would go. Today, I'm going to take a look at a few of my predictions and to the extent possible, assess how they held up.

This year, COVID-19 canceled the end-of-year school rituals. Likewise, the pandemic will consume the back-to-school rituals and with them the very act of going back to school for millions of students. Then what?