“…only a tiny minority of elementary and middle schools successfully support low-performing students to achieve gap-closing levels of growth.” Read Gwen Baker, Lauren Shwartze, and Bonnie O’Keefe on what to do about that. Their piece is part of Fordham’s annual “Wonkathon” contest. Read all those entries here, and don’t forget to vote!

Katrina Boone and Alex Spurrier predict what might be next for education in Kentucky.

We’ve long known that teacher qualifications don’t seem to matter that much in K-12 education, but a new study suggests they may not matter that much in higher ed either.

“Through focus groups, budget analyses and interviews with three dozen district and community leaders, the study’s authors found a growing frustration that increasing pension costs were crowding out school districts’ budgets, forcing cuts to programs that parents valued and competing with salary increases for teachers needed to keep pace with fast-rising housing expenses in the Bay Area.” That’s from an EdSource write-up of a new PACE report by Hannah Melnicoe, Cory Koedel and Arun Ramanathan.

Part of me is annoyed it took so long for Cory Booker to remember his education policy, but I guess I should be pleased it finally happened. He writes, “The treatment by many Democrats of high-performing public charter schools as boogeymen has undermined the fact that many of these schools are serving low-income urban children across the country in ways that are inclusive, equitable, publicly accountable and locally driven.”

This Washington Post deep dive on virtual medical care in rural areas is super interesting, with implications for the education sector.

–Guest post by Chad Aldeman